“Prove McCarthy wrong!” Muyoti urges Harambee Stars to rise to the occasion after coach’s AFCON remarks

Former Kenya Police FC head coach Nicholas Muyoti has come to the defence of Harambee Stars head coach Benni McCarthy following the South African’s comments about Kenya’s standing in African football ahead of the upcoming back-to-back encounters against Bafana Bafana.

McCarthy recently sparked debate after seemingly playing down Kenya’s chances against some of the continent’s established football nations, citing the difference in quality and experience between the players available to him and those at the disposal of other national teams.

Speaking about Kenya’s position compared to teams such as South Africa and Guinea, the Harambee Stars coach Benni McCarthy said:

“Kenya is a very small nation when it comes to football. We’re not the biggest nation. When you have teams like South Africa and Guinea, who have so many players who play in the top leagues in the world. Borussia Dortmund, for example, they have players who play in the French league. And then you have Kenya. You know, we are a very humble team.”

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His remarks attracted attention among Kenyan football fans, with some questioning whether the coach was undermining his own players by suggesting that Kenya were not yet at the level of the continent’s leading football nations.

However, Muyoti, a former Harambee Stars midfielder, has offered a different interpretation of McCarthy’s comments, arguing that the coach could have been deliberately trying to provoke a reaction from his players and motivate them to prove their abilities.

According to the former Police FC tactician, McCarthy’s remarks should be viewed as a psychological approach aimed at bringing out the competitive spirit within the squad rather than an admission that Kenya cannot compete against stronger opponents.

“On what the coach said, the way I look at it is that he is trying to trigger something out of the players. He might be saying we can’t win against a certain team, but maybe his intention is to bring the hunger inside the players and make them say, ‘It’s our coach saying this, we are going to give our all to prove him wrong,'” Muyoti explained.

“I took it that way. He was trying to trigger something inside the players. It was like a challenge to them.”

ALSO READ: Kenya not ready to win AFCON title, admits Harambee Stars coach McCarthy

Muyoti further urged the national team players not to interpret the coach’s remarks negatively, insisting that they should instead use them as motivation to raise their performance levels and demonstrate that Kenya can compete with the best.

“The players shouldn’t take it in a negative way. They should take it positively, in a way that let’s put in more effort to prove that what the coach is saying is not true. I took it that way. Maybe some people took it differently, but me, I see a coach trying to trigger something in those players,” he added.

McCarthy will have an opportunity to test his team’s progress against his home country when Harambee Stars face South Africa in a two-legged 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying assignment in November.

The first encounter will be played on Friday, November 13, at Orlando Amstel Arena in Johannesburg, South Africa, with kick-off scheduled for 6:00 pm South African time (7:00 pm EAT).

The two nations will then meet again on Tuesday, November 17, with Kenya hosting Bafana Bafana at Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi. The return fixture is scheduled to kick off at 7:00 pm EAT.

The double-header will be particularly significant for McCarthy, who represented South Africa during his playing career and will now be looking to guide Kenya against his former national team.

Although Kenya have already secured automatic qualification for the 2027 AFCON tournament as co-hosts alongside Uganda and Tanzania, the November matches will provide McCarthy with another opportunity to assess his squad against one of Africa’s established football nations.

Harambee Stars will also be looking to make a statement following their mixed start to the qualification campaign, having drawn 1-1 against Eritrea before suffering a 1-0 defeat away to Guinea.

For Muyoti, however, the message is simple: the players should use their coach’s comments as motivation and respond on the pitch rather than allow the remarks to affect their confidence.