Marked for Levis Esambe
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vincent Mahiga
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AFC Leopards lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Kaycie Odhiambo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levis Esambe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market21 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Samuel Ssenyonjo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
James Kinyanjui has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at AFC Leopards 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
Upbeat
Squad30 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vincent Mahiga
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AFC Leopards lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” AFC Leopards may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market30 Nov 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AFC Leopards is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Eric Omondi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
115% of the income goes out in wages at AFC Leopards
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levis Esambe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Musa Oundo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at AFC Leopards 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager makes Stephen Okola a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at AFC Leopards. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 42. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match9 Sep 2026
The small margins put AFC Leopards out
Out, 0‑3 to Kenya Police, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match12 Sep 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Tyson Otieno will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at AFC Leopards escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Tyson Otieno goes up and wins it — 7.59
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.59 for the rest of it.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
$40.0K was the most the club would pay and Bandari 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at AFC Leopards training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaycie Odhiambo 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Stephen Okola 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.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
At 23 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now AFC Leopards have 5 straight wins of it.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at AFC Leopards 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Sofapaka come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and AFC Leopards did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AFC Leopards is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Egnatia Rrogozhinë is saying, and nobody at AFC Leopards is enjoying the guessing.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Musa Oundo has agreed terms with Tusker for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Eric Omondi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Kakamega Homeboyz wanted more than $28.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.