Omalla misses Firat’s final list

Gor Mahia’s sensational scoring machine Benson Omalla will have to wait a little longer for his senior Harambee Stars debut after failing to make the cut in the travelling squad that will face Iran next week. The 21-year-old, who is the current top scorer in the Footbal Kenya Federation Premier League (FKF-PL) with 19 goals, is among players axed from the Harambee Stars camp yesterday by head coach Engin Firat who trimmed the team to only 23 players from the provisional list of 30 whom he called to the national team last week.

Others who were shockingly dropped yesterday include Bandari FC left-back Siraj Mohamed and centre-back Andrew Juma, Sweden’s club AIK midfielder Collins Sichenje and forward Masud Juma.

AFC Leopards goalkeeper Levis Opiyo, Nzoia Sugar duo of Samuel Mwangi and Hassan Beja and KCB defender Maurice Owino were all released from the Harambee Stars camp on Monday.

Kenya Police midfielder Alvine Mang’eni was reportedly dropped due to illness while Kakamega Homeboyz captain Moses Mudavadi gave a no-show completely.

KCB goalkeeper Byrne Omondi, Leopard midfielder Victor Omune and Gor Mahia’s Alpha Onyango have been included in the travelling party and looks set to make national team debuts should they be selected to face the former Asian champions on Tuesday.

New boys Daniel Anyembe who features for FC Viborg FF of Denmark and Alfred Scriven of Hodd club of Norway gave a good impression to the technical bench. 

They made it into the final travelling list, all set to sample a Kenyan matchday flavour for the first time.

Harambee Stars is set to jet out of the country on Sunday for Tehran where they will face a highly ranked Iran at the Azadi Stadium.

Meanwhile, former Iran national football team midfielder Andranik Teymourian was named an assistant coach of Team Melli. He is one of Amir Ghalenoei’s assistants in the National Team.

Teymourian, known as Ando, was a member of Iran national football team from 2005 to 2016 and scored nine goals on 101 matches.

This is his first experience as a coach.