Kitende pressure cooker set to test Kajoba’s grit
Kajoba arrives at St Mary’s Stadium Kitende for his new role at Vipers. His stay will be under tight scrutiny by the team owners. PHOTO BY JOHN BATANUDDE.
What you need to know:
- Whether Kajoba’s guiding hand would have insulted Karisa from being buffeted by the demands of professional football remains to be seen.
- The new Vipers coach’s reputation of closing shop and playing a reactive brand of football against big sides also precedes him.
Last Sunday, Vipers SC unveiled Fred Kajoba as it new coach with many holding that the job will prove tough-going for the former Cranes goalkeeper. While this knee-jerk conclusion peddled a particular strain of bias, the doomsayers did not have to wait long to polish their badge. A goalless draw away to Mbarara City midweek saw KCCA FC whittle down the Venoms’ lead atop the 16-team log to just two points.
The draw, which in some quarters was likened to watching paint dry, should not be one to provoke and prod the trigger-happy Lawrence Mulindwa. But Kajoba will not be disinclined to face up to the hard truth that he is treading on eggshells.
When it comes to hiring and firing coaches, the Vipers owner can be be as wilfully unconventional as one could possibly be. He embraces both sentimentality and implausibility.
As widely forecasted, Mulindwa offered no apologies to those that believe he acted in a coarse and offensive way in cutting Edward Golola loose.
While this has since received both praise and disgust in almost equal measure, the Vipers top honcho’s view that catastrophic shortcomings of local coaches suggest a startling lack of know-how is beyond dispute.
Without naming names, Mulindwa expressed shock at how players who are the handiwork of Vipers’ backroom staff fail to make the grade in the paid ranks. Milton Karisa had just returned from MC Oujda where he spent one topsy-turvy season with the 1975 Moroccan champions. The 24-year-old is reportedly keen on rejoining the Venoms.
Whether Kajoba’s guiding hand would have insulted Karisa from being buffeted by the demands of professional football remains to be seen. What is apparent is that the former Cranes goalkeeper has more fight than his immediate predecessor at St Mary’s Stadium.
Ask anyone that has worked closely with Kajoba and they will tell you that he is a formidable motivator and leader. They will also hasten to add — as did one of his former colleagues at Bright Stars — that the 50-year-old coach is “more flexible tactically than people give him credit for.”
For instance, last season Bright Stars was only outscored in the league by KCCA, Vipers and Police (in that order).
This is no mean feat; yet, the praises notwithstanding, opinion has crystallised around the fact that Kajoba is more result- than development-oriented. One player that once was entrusted to his care described Kajoba’s training sessions as being “more physical than technical or tactical.”
The new Vipers coach’s reputation of closing shop and playing a reactive brand of football against big sides also precedes him. So it invariably follows that observers will question his ability to assuage Mulindwa’s rather outlandish desires at Kitende. Of course Kajoba can always claim that he did not have the resources to do anything otherworldly at Bright Stars.
The club’s travails after it chose not to renew his contract at the end of last season probably speak volumes. But then again Vipers is a different animal. It is for all intents and purposes a pressure cooker that will test Kajoba’s grit.
