Marked for Edwin Lutta
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jan 2027
Levis Ochieng damages knee ligaments — 52 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 52 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market18 Jan 2027
US Bougouni come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sofapaka did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Sofapaka
David Nshimirimana 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Sofapaka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Clifton Miheso 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.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Edwin Lutta gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Reuben Otieno is in the works
Sofapaka have made the call to Kenya Police. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Keith Imbali is in the works
Sofapaka have made the call to Shabana. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Bandari have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Sammy Kiplangat has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sofapaka 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sofapaka may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Nov 2026
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. Sofapaka will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad16 Nov 2026
David Nshimirimana 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Clifton Miheso 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
No place for Kandrin Naidoo in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sofapaka are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market16 Nov 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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 Sammy Kiplangat is on it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Edwin Lutta knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sofapaka, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Edwin Lutta: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sofapaka have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad21 Sep 2026
David Nshimirimana 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑2 to Kariobangi Sharks, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Clinton Ayumba to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Market21 Sep 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sofapaka know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.