Ghost Mulee: Stage fright was Starlets’ main undoing
The national women’s football team’s early exit from the ongoing Africa Nations Cup in Cameroon has been attributed to stage fright on the part of the players, plus the last-minute changes made to the squad.
This is according to former Harambee Stars head coach, Jacob “Ghost” Mulee. The coach is, however, confident that Harambee Starlets will learn from the experiences and post better results in future.
The Starlets were knocked out of the tournament in the group stages following a 3-1 loss to Mali in Limbe on Wednesday. The Kenyan side had earlier lost their opening game by a similar scoreline to Ghana on Sunday.
“I noted the girls were uneasy in the first two games of the competition, probably because they have never played at this level before. Then there were some changes made to the squad and you could see straight away that it affected the set up,” said Mulee.
MISSING IN THE SQUAD
“Technically, we couldn’t just defend set pieces. I also believe our girls thought it would be easy to play Mali because they had been thrashed (6-0) by Nigeria earlier on.”
Forwards Neddy Atieno, Pauline Naise, Enez Mango and Mwanahalima “Dogo” Adam are among the dependable players who missed this competition owing to various reasons.
Atieno recently joined the Kenya Defence Forces, Mango and Naise secured employment opportunities in the private sector, while Adam has been writing her “O” Level exams.
The Kenyan girls will play their last fixture against defending champions Nigeria on Saturday.
