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Gor Mahia head coach Johnathan McKinstry has advised his Harambee Stars counterpart Engin Firat on how to develop the national team.

In a recent interview, Firat said the Football Kenya Federation Premier League has dropped in standards as compared to Tanzanian competition.

However, instead of focusing on the standard of the league, McKinstry told Firat to find a unique national game style and build on that.

“It’s about finding what a national game looks like and building on that,” McKinstry told Gor Mahia TV.

McKinstry looked back at the time he was in charge of the Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Uganda national teams and said his guiding principle was looking for what worked and not the problems.

“I think I’ve had a lot of success with national teams in the past; you know, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and all of them, we posted sort of 50–60% winning records.

“We got to big tournaments, we won tournaments, we got to the knockout stages of big tournaments, and all of that was about working with what we had and trying to add on top of it as opposed to looking for the problems,” the K’Ogalo coach added.

Leagues’ development

To the North Irish tactician, the majority of world leagues are under development except for the top five in Europe.

“Look, the continent of Africa is my second home. You know, I have lived here for the last 13 years; I’ve lived on the continent for 10 of them in different parts. Here in Kenya, I’ve been very lucky to live here for almost two years now.

“Leagues here, all leagues, unless you’re the Bundesliga, the English Premier League, La Liga, or maybe Serie A, these leagues don’t have much improvement. They’re already at the top of the world. But other than that, there’s another 205 leagues in the world that can improve,” the FKF PL-winning coach added.