Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kariobangi Sharks they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Sbusiso Mtshali and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faiz Opande is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
8 goals and a season average of 7.29 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
The dugout21 May 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Joseph Rupia, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kariobangi Sharks, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kariobangi Sharks can pretend not to have heard.
Faiz Opande was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Geordy Ndecket was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Kariobangi Sharks have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout7 May 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Joseph Rupia was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Kariobangi Sharks dressing room was either.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sbusiso Mtshali and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Geordy Ndecket is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A 2‑1 win over Nairobi United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Obasanjo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kariobangi Sharks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sbusiso Mtshali was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings19 Feb 2029
Samuel Kapen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Joseph Rupia was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Kariobangi Sharks dressing room was either.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kariobangi Sharks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$30.0K was the most the club would pay and AFC Leopards were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Kariobangi Sharks asked and SuperSport United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Samuel Kapen. 2‑0 against KCB, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. David Miheso has, at Kariobangi Sharks, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation Kariobangi Sharks did not have in the autumn.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 7 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Kariobangi Sharks until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
$30.0K on the table at AFC Leopards. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
80 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kariobangi Sharks, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Kariobangi Sharks will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Sbusiso Mtshali and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Faiz Opande has his answer from Kariobangi Sharks; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Sbusiso Mtshali was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kariobangi Sharks, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Obasanjo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kariobangi Sharks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Kariobangi Sharks know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Samuel Kapen has written the date down.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Kariobangi Sharks will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
80 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Sbusiso Mtshali and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Everybody at Kariobangi Sharks saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Ghai Panchol falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Samuel Kapen has written the date down.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ally Salum Omar and Kariobangi Sharks agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Edwin Mukolwe is living that version at Kariobangi Sharks, and it tends to show in the first month.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kariobangi Sharks can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Sbusiso Mtshali was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Kariobangi Sharks asked and Shabana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Sfundo Nzama falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Kariobangi Sharks will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Darnelle Thomas is 19, and Kariobangi Sharks have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Darnelle Thomas and Kariobangi Sharks agree another 3 years.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kelly Madada did not need any: 8.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kakamega Homeboyz can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings10 Jul 2028
Up for the corner, and Rodgers Ouma delivers — 7.86
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Rodgers Ouma scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
7.97, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The offer from Sofapaka for Ibrahim Wanzala was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kakamega Homeboyz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Kelly Madada, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
1 for Boniface Onyango, marked 7.56, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Joshua Nyatini and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.02, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A 2‑0 win over Mathare United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Two goals and a mark of 9.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kelly Madada did not need any: 8.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Joshua Nyatini was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Buleti is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kakamega Homeboyz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Joshua Nyatini was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Omondi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AFC Leopards waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Kakamega Homeboyz is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Oalo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Peter Thiong'o is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Portipher Odhiambo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joshua Nyatini signs something — a contract at Kakamega Homeboyz or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Kakamega Homeboyz people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Rodgers Ouma was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Glen Masava falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Glen Masava's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Joshua Nyatini was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kakamega Homeboyz told Edwin Mukolwe something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.