For so long, as whoever cares about Kenyan football can remember, the lack of a seasoned marksman in Harambee Stars has been the Achilles heel of the national team.

The vulnerability by Stars in as far as getting a couple of strikers finding the back of the opponent’s net has been so pronounced in recent years.

In the years of yore, players like the late Joe Kadenge and William “Chege” Ouma of AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia respectively were nothing short of revelations in the attacking line as they served for a longer period before things started going south for the team years later.

A little gamble here and there saw subsequent Stars trainers trying Allan Wanga and Jesse Were with very minimal success despite the country’s strikers coming in all shapes and sizes.

These are statistics that should be ingested by current Stars Coach Engin Firat as he leads his battalion in the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers which kick off on November 13.

At the moment, Stars’ leading hit-man in the attack is Qatar-based Michael Olunga who is considerably over-relied on, giving credence to why Firat needs to search for an equally scoring-oriented striker for the simple reason that injury on any player can occur which necessitates a suitable replacement either locally or internationally.

This is a challenge Firat should confront head-on, especially keeping in mind that former coach, the late German Reinhardt Fabisch criss-crossed Kenya’s grassroot landscape during his tenure and came up with players who held onto their own by even stopping the dreaded Super Eagles of Nigeria in a World Cup qualifier.

Still on the same lines, Firat should know that Nigeria has more than 30 natural strikers plying their trade in Europe, and despite almost all of them being the silkiest box-to-box players, they still have to fight for a place with others in the team’s squad.

Kenya is grouped with Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Seychelles and Burundi in the World Cup qualifies and it’s upon Firat to emulate Fabisch by possibly scouting for strikers from the grassroots.

All we want are strikers with multi-faceted skills whose impact transcends to both assists and goals. In other words, we want strikers who are technically proficient to instill fear in opposing defences en route to scoring those important goals.