Kenya National Football

http://www.nation.co.ke/sports/football/Kimanzi+Brazil+2014+tall+order+/-/1102/1333022/-/fmkxi9z/-/index.html

 

The Kenya national football team has never been to a World Cup but the people of Kenya are hoping that is about to change. A large check was donated by a private donor to make the national team a more appealing option for players. The Kenya Football federation which runs the national team said that the team’s and donor’s goals are to qualify for the 2013 African Cup of Nations and the 2014 World Cup. The team knows that it has to build the side up step by step and promise not to take shortcuts but build a strong team for years to come. The coach is looking forward to the challenge and has some players that he wants to be on the team but cautions that qualify will not be easy.

As a fan of all kinds of sports any article of sports interest me. The reason that this article is so interesting is the stark difference between western national teams and the national team in Kenya. The teams of the major western nations have lots of players and have to cut some of them because they are not good enough. On the Kenya national team it sounds like that the coach is going to have to recruit the better players to come back home to play. This goes a little bit with what we were learning in class were unlike the west where we have strong ties to the government, many of the nations in Africa due to the colonial period due not because they feel that the government does not represent the people. The fact that there was a large article about the team getting a donation from a business stands out to me as well. In the west we just assume that Nike, Coke, Pepsi, and others are just going to be lining up to give out money to the national team so that there player use their products. In Kenya it seems as this is the first time that the team has had a large sum of money to work with and are looking forward to building a strong team.

Football is the world’s largest sport. As many of these African countries are not very strongly united a good national football team can no wonders to bring the nation together. When the Olympics or even the World Cup was on every on in the U.S. was cheering for the team and talking about the athletes success.  In a country like Kenya seeing a team that represents all of Kenya not just one group do well will help bring the country together. Sports to many are a form of entertainment but when a national team is able to do something that that country has never experience before it can unity the country in ways that no one thought were possible.

Kevin Whaley