McKinstry: A man on a mission

Coaching a football team in any form is a tough call — and in the maelstroms of Africa tougher still. Yet back in 2010 when an acquaintance floated the idea of coaching in Africa, Johnathan McKinstry did not shoot a dismissive look that suggested disinterest. Aged just 24 then, the Northern Irishman could have been forgiven for looking at Africa as a conduit for challenging experiences. Yet there was not even an iota of childlike paranoia or fear.
“At that stage I was living right a few streets back from the Hudson River, and I chose to give it all up to live in a fishing village right outside of Freetown, [Sierra Leone],” McKinstry recalled while appearing on NTV’s premier sports talk show, Press Box, this past week.

While it is true that European coaches were at the time — and still are — gathering expectantly around African football, all evidence pointed to the economic assumptions and complacencies of your average 24-year-old effortlessly resting easy on the allure of the Big Apple. But McKinstry and average are like chalk and cheese. Average or indeed undistinguished is hardly a description to be made of someone that did his first coaching badges at 15. Precocious is perhaps a more appropriate descriptor.

Sacrifices yielding dividends
Looking back on his decision to swap New York for Freetown, McKinstry says the overarching impression in fact rested on the cornerstone that “you sometimes make personal sacrifices in order to take forward movement.” Three years after working as the technical director of the Craig Bellamy academy in Sierra Leone, McKinstry thought he was due some forward movement. The Sierra Leone national football team was residing in a sense of uncertainty following the resignation of Swedish coach Lars-Olof Mattsson. The Northern Irishman strongly believed that he could convince the Sierra Leone FA to conclude that employing a 28-year-old was not akin to stumbling blindfolded into a crisis.

To do this McKinstry had to prove that he had an old head on young shoulders. After all age invariably is equated with wisdom in Africa. By his own admission, McKinstry says he is “very pedantic on details.” Such curiosity provided sufficient granularity to answer questions thrown at him during an interview for the Sierra Leone job. His SWOT analysis of Sierra Leone and indeed its next opponent — Tunisia — was profoundly convincing so much so he was offered the job two days later. The Northern Irishman, a gifted communicator, put substance behind the dossier he furnished the interview panel with by sharing the spoils with Tunisia in his first match as Sierra Leone head coach. Because this was no mean feat, the plausible forecast was of the young coach going from strength to strength. But an Ebola outbreak in the west African country in 2014 had other ideas. It put the skids under McKinstry and eventually he was fired by e-mail.

First connection with Uganda
Before Ebola reared its ugly head, Ugandan football had managed to get within McKinstry’s eyeshot. It was on a cloudy day with a steady drizzle when Faruku Miya turned from villain to hero. The playmaker was yet to come to prominence with a career-launching stint when he stepped up to bungle a penalty kick in an international friendly match against Seychelles on July 11, 2014. He soon thankfully made amends with a firm header that settled the contest in Lugogo, much to Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic’s joy.

A little over 7,000 kilometres away from Lugogo, McKinstry was intent on putting his finger on the pulse of the friendly match. After resignedly failing to get a live stream of the match, he fired away an e-mail to Micho. The contents of the message were unreservedly respectful and desperate for information. The Leone Stars would in a few days lock horns with Seychelles in a 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. “I asked [Micho] for a scouting report,” the Northern Irishman recalls, adding, “I got an e-mail from him that said [the national players from Seychelles] are a group of waiters on holiday.”

McKinstry had no idea that six years later he would have the Cranes’ coaching reins in his grasp. It is six month now since the 34-year-old signed on the dotted line with Fufa. During that period, the Northern Irishman has won nine out of 10 matches played. McKinstry, however, knows that international football is not forgiving of mistakes and braggadocio. He wants his charges to be ready for that moment when opponents will threaten to shine a pitiless light on flaws barely visible at the moment. “We have a lot of hopes for the future and those hopes are not going to materialise in one or two months. It’s gonna take a few years, but we believe where we are going.”

Such single-mindedness can only bode well for a Cranes team whose impact on the continent grows when viewed cumulatively. In isolation, though, the team’s performances at the Chan have stuck out like a sore thumb. They play in their fifth finals next month in Cameroon desperate to shake a monkey off the back. Not once have they made it to the knockout stages. “Knockout football is about managing the clock, penalties and the like. It is something that Uganda does not have,” acknowledges the man who sensationally took Rwanda to the quarter-finals of the fourth staging of the championship in 2016.

Changing the mindset
McKinstry also wants to change the mindset and general approach of Ugandan players. He speaks highly of pressing and possessing. Interceptions high up the field are also more welcome than last-ditch tackles. His eschewal of functional football can as well be seen in the move from big players to small statured technicians. McKinstry says he “cringe[s] at the number of few caps Mike Azira has” and that above all the pitiful return shows how in years gone by “that type of player was not valued as they are today.”

Time might have changed, but one constant remains for the Cranes: Denis Onyango. Two months McKinstry’s senior, the South African-based goalkeeper will continue to be the heartbeat of the Cranes. And rightly so. Onyango is particularly pleased by McKinstry’s pledge to make Ugandan football “no different than going to the cinema or theatre.” The player McKinstry calls “a mountain of a man” however adds that “Namboole should help with facilitating a better pitch to play the style of football that’s good for all Ugandans.”

Onyango is also excited that McKinstry is blooding new players in the Cranes setup. Three uncapped, foreign-based players will be part of the party that will brace for a 2021 Afcon qualifying doubleheader with South Sudan. They include Elvis Okello who turns out for Southend United in England, Jayden Onen who is on the books of Brentford in England and Karl Anthony Uchechukwu Mubiru Ikpeazu who features for Scottish topflight outfit Hearts of Midlothian.

Says Onyango about the trio: “For us senior players all we need to do is guide and help them settle well in the squad for them to give the country better results.” McKinstry expects that and more. “Your heart’s gotta beat a bit faster when you walk out of Namboole…you’re playing for a nation that is representing 40 plus million people.” Patriotism, basically.
Outside football, McKinstry is finding his feet around Uganda. He recently toured Bwindi with his partner. “We stayed just by Lake Mutanda and paradise just encapsulated. You’re there in a place that seems like someone has dreamt it up. It is unbelievable.” Definitely not what he expected when he gave up the view of the Hudson River. Not that there were any complaints in the first place!

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