There is something enchanting about how children play football that Harambee Stars coach Benni McCarthy wants his players to emulate.
“I like my players to go back to when they were kids. There was no positioning. Everybody plays everywhere and sees how well they develop their footballing skills. It benefits them when they become older because they become more versatile. They are not just one-dimensional players and can play various positions,” McCarthy said on Monday, March 24, at Nyayo National Stadium when Harambee Stars met for their first training session in preparation for their 2026 Fifa Series matches.
The Fifa Series is meant to facilitate meaningful international friendly matches between national teams from different confederations that would not normally compete against one another, thereby supporting football development both on and off the pitch. Harambee Stars are scheduled to play Estonia on March 27 before meeting the winner of the Rwanda vs Grenada match on March 30.
Harambee Stars' coach Benni McCarthy.
Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat| Nation Media Group
The matches will be played at the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali, Rwanda. The team will travel to Rwanda this morning. McCarthy’s remarks easily hint at a desire to have Harambee Stars play ‘total football’, a tactical system in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. A player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining the team’s intended organisational structure.
Thinking of McCarthy’s remarks that way perhaps puts into context why he wants Harambee Stars to play like children. Kids, generally, play football with outfield players having no fixed playing positions and in his Harambee Stars squad; McCarthy believes he has players who fit that profile. “I like that and I think a lot of (Harambee Stars) players have to adapt to that. So far, it has been really well because I cannot honestly tell you what Ben Stanley Omondi’s best position is. He does a good job as number nine and can also play number 10.
Austin Odhiambo can play as a left converted winger who comes inside as a second number 10,” McCarthy explained. Expounding on that, McCarthy stated that players having such qualities arm them with creativity that takes them out of their comfort zone and catches their opponents by surprise.
While McCarthy’s expressing his desire to have Harambee Stars play ‘total football’ resonates with repeated calls for the national team to have an identifiable playing style, Kenya’s humiliating 8-0 loss to Senegal in their last match serves as a brutal reminder of the danger of lacking caution when trying to impose a new playing style.
“Obviously, the last game, that was not Kenya,” McCarthy said of how Harambee Stars played against Senegal in Turkey in November last year. The South African further described Harambee Stars’ squad for that match as “experimental” and the fixture as “a surprise”. “We were supposed to play Madagascar and Comoros, and then it changed to Equatorial Guinea and Madagascar.
Kenya's coach Benni McCarthy reacts on the touchline during the African Nations Championships match against Morocco at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani in Nairobi on August 10, 2025.
Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat | Nation Media Group
After that, it changed to two matches against Equatorial Guinea, and then a week before the friendlies, we were told we would play Senegal. The scheduling was beyond our control, but we honoured the match and got a real taste of international football,” McCarthy said. The loss to Senegal was Harambee Stars’ worst defeat since losing 9-0 to Zambia in 1978, prompting McCarthy to vow, “from that mistake, we do not want to experiment again with young and new players.”
“These friendly matches give us an opportunity for us to rectify and make people forget about our last match because we are as good as our last match,” he added.
Looking further ahead, McCarthy defined the upcoming friendlies as the onset of him and his technical bench establishing a strong Harambee Stars squad that will compete at Afcon 2027, which the country will co-host with Tanzania and Uganda. This strengthening of the Harambee Stars squad has seen McCarthy doubling down on efforts to convince foreign-born players of Kenyan heritage to switch allegiance to Harambee Stars.
Harambee Stars head coach Benni McCarthy during the team's training session at Nyayo National Stadium on July 23, 2025
Photo credit: Chris Omollo | Nation Media Group
Over the last month, McCarthy, and several Football Kenya Federation officials, including its vice president, McDonald Mariga, pitched camp in England for that purpose.
The England-born duo of Clarke Oduor and Zech Obiero have already been called up for the upcoming friendly matches. Oduor, who plays for Grimsby Town on loan from Bradford City, described his return to the national team after a six-year hiatus as “good”.
“It is an honour and I am excited to show what I can do, ”he added. Obiero, who has hit the ground running after completing a loan move to Tranmere Rovers from Leyton Orient, described his conversations with McCarthy about featuring for Harambee Stars as “encouraging”.
“McCarthy is a legend in football and speaking to him was an honour,” he said.
