It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Faiz Opande signs something — a contract at Kariobangi Sharks or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Faiz Opande 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Kariobangi Sharks will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
A whole season of being the finest 21-year-old anybody in this league could put on a pitch. Kariobangi Sharks have him, and everybody else now knows it.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Kariobangi Sharks had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
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.
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 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 it has been tried.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout5 Oct 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Francis Manyama to a room that had heard them before.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Joseph Mwangi
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Joseph Mwangi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Kariobangi Sharks have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Paul Ochuoga is on it.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Posta Rangers, and it could have been more.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Joseph Mwangi takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Joseph Mwangi provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Brian Owusu is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. John Kamau is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ghai Panchol
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ikorodu City have kept their man, and Kariobangi Sharks go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Habib Sarwari 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.
Ghai Panchol 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ian Karani has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
Posta Rangers next, and one man in the Kariobangi Sharks dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kennedy Ochieng trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Kariobangi Sharks have done the hard part with Ulinzi Stars, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Kariobangi Sharks has to find a result from somewhere.
The chase for David Obasanjo ended with $14.0K changing hands and Shabana out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KCB have kept their man, and Kariobangi Sharks go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 6.74 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The clubs have shaken hands with Shabana; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Faiz Opande 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Francis Manyama after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Patillah Omoto. 2‑1 against Ulinzi Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ghai Panchol 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Kariobangi Sharks know it, and so does everybody who watches him.