K’Ogalo’s high expectations deter local coaches

When Gor Mahia announced that two-time league winning tactician Johnathan McKinstry will officially leave the club at the end of the current season, the process of finding his successor began in earnest in the interest of preparing for what is expected to be a resounding return to continental football. 

McKinstry’s two-year reign as the Gor Mahia head coach will cease at the end of the month with the Sierra Leone national team being his next workstation.

The North Irishman has already hit the ground running at Sierra Leone, but Gor Mahia bosses expect him to return after the FIFA international break and oversee the remaining three league matches left in the season. 

No sooner had McKinstry’s rumours of leaving Gor Mahia for Sierra Leone leaked to the public, than applications from coaches began to trigger.

The club’s vice chairman Francis Wasuna revealed that tens of foreign coaches had expressed interest in picking from where McKinstry will leave. 

Out of the scores of applicants, none is from the wide pool of coaches trained by the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) in collaboration with the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

Wasuna attributes the hesitance by local coaches to apply for the job to the sky-high pressure to deliver and meet expectations of the fans.'

Having won back-to-back league crowns, the new coach is expected to not only retain the title but also ensure the club puts in decent performance in continental matches. 

“I really can’t tell exactly why local coaches are not interested in the job. I do understand that the job comes with a lot of pressure to deliver good results from different quarters. They probably don’t like the pressure they will receive from our fan base,” he told SportsBoom.com. 

Most of the foreign coaches who have tutored the club have won titles, setting the bar high in the process. 

To Wasuna this could also be a solid reason for locally trained coaches to steer clear of the job that is presumed to be lucrative.

“The bar is always very high at Gor considering that we are record league champions. Any coach coming to the club is always expected to raise it higher and this, again, could be a reason our coaches don’t want to take up the challenge. Of course, we have good local tacticians, but I struggle to understand why they are not applying,” he said.

With McKinstry’s reign in its sunset days, Gor Mahia are keenly looking at the profiles of twelve coaches with an eye of picking the best.