Hope is Our Only Hope for Stars in Luanda Cauldron

Charles Nyende

3 June 2011

Nairobi — One of human life’s most pervasive and indomitable feelings is hope. We are always hoping. When things are down and all seems lost we cling to hope that things will get better.

Hope also keeps as dreaming for that good fortune that will positively alter our existence.

Was it not some son of a Kenyan village goat herder who talked about the “audacity of hope” on his journey to eventually becoming President of the world’s most powerful nation?

Hope sustains us, hope gives us purpose, strength. How true of this in sports.

Only eight teams have won the Fifa World Cup but in every four-year cycle some 208 nations engage in the qualifiers hoping they will win football’s most coveted trophy.

They put their plans together and dare dream they will be the world winners. It will not matter that the team has no form book of a chance of even qualifying.

I remember when, in 1997, Kenya held a star-studded Nigeria side 1-1 in Nairobi.

Then, Harambee Stars – under the magical hands of Reinhardt Fabisch – were in the front running for a World Cup place and many Kenyan hearts fluttered with hope of a first ever qualification.

Well, the audacity to hope flowed thick in the blood of Kenyans but the performance of Stars on the pitch did not reciprocate it. A 3-0 thrashing in Abuja closed that chapter.

Everything against the Kenyans

Harambee Stars are campaigning to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The team is placed second on Group “J” and must get at least a draw away to Angola tomorrow to keep their chances of qualifying alive.

Everything seems to be leaning against the Kenyans, however. One: Harambee Stars are yet to win away from home in qualifiers since beating Cape Verde 1-0 in Praia eight years ago.

Two: They were thumped 3-1 by Angola the last time they met in Luanda. Three: After changing coaches thrice in two years, Stars are still trying to find their form.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, the preparations of Harambee Stars have been chaotic. A destabilizing club-versus-country row, uncertainty of player availability, a cancelled training trip to Namibia, the one-match suspension of mainstay McDonald Mariga.

I could go on.

Truth be told, the chances of Harambee Stars getting a result in the notoriously hostile Luanda cauldron are as high as learning to speak Portuguese in a day.

All we can do is cling to hope that Harambee Stars will rise to the occasion.

Yeah, hope is our only hope.

AllAfrica – All the Time