Marked for Levis Ochieng
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Sofapaka
David Nshimirimana and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 162% of everything Sofapaka earn
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Levis Ochieng 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.
The dugout5 Oct 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Japheth Lihanda has moved up it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Sofapaka's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sofapaka has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sofapaka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Sep 2026
Muranga Seal left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
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
Elijah Mulinya dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The plan did not have a place for Brian Olang'o
Nobody at Sofapaka 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Sep 2026
8 matches without a win for Sofapaka
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Sofapaka are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
David King'atua, 33, rolls back the years — 8.43
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.43 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Sep 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout14 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Eugene Wethuli was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Sofapaka
Duncan Masika and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ochieng Kahata after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Sofapaka out
Out, 2‑4 to Mathare United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Sofapaka's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sofapaka has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad24 Aug 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 Aug 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Sofapaka and Mathare United in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Finlay Sanduku at his very best
Marked 8.04. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Sofapaka.
Match22 Aug 2026
Sofapaka caught on 87 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then KCB scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.