When Nzoia Sugar made the trip down to the coast to play Bandari last weekend, it was tipped as one of the highlight fixtures of the match day. An encounter between two sides under the stewardship of two young coaches; Salim Babu taking charge of Nzoia Sugar against Anthony Kimani’s Bandari.Bandari came into the game off an away loss to Tusker FC but they, however, boasted of a good home form, having amassed 15 points at Mbaraki Grounds. After a near-perfect start to the season for Nzoia Sugar FC, the team has fallen off track in the last 5 games with only one win and 4 draws, with local football enthusiasts linking the drop to the circus that is the transfer window confusion.##NAJAVA_MECA_7098861##Kimani orchestrated a tactical masterclass to disrupt Nzoia’s build-up and the emphasis on short passing across the pack to overload and then look to isolate the opposition ball far player.Team Structures.Bandari set up in a 1-3-5-2 formation with heavy rotations among the wide midfielders to create triangles with the advancing wingbacks. Douglas Mokaya and Amos Asembeka looked to create from deep and also offer passing options out wide with Dennis Magige sitting to protect the defense while the evergreen William Wadri and Kasumba Umaru sought the goals. The backline consisted of Brian Odera, Rodgers Aloro, and Andrew Juma with Aloro tasked with the advancing role of picking markers between the lines when an overload was created around Dennis Magige.Matasi indebted to Tusker for offering him platform to resuscitate careerNzoia Sugar set up in their favored 1-4-2-3-1 formation with the emphasis on neat combination play centrally and a very structured build-up pattern.Build Up Vs Press.In the Nzoia build-up phase, Coach Babu looked to gain superiority in his first phase by dropping a midfielder next to the goalkeeper Humphrey Katasi, then having the centre-backs split wide of the goalkeeper to the edge of the penalty box, this let the fullbacks push high to play in line with the other central midfielder, with the advanced forwards now playing between the lines with the main striker pinning the centre backs deeper. Coach Kimani had prepared well for this game as he set up to press in a 1-4-4-2 formation and it proved very effective as both his two centre forwards were able to control the space behind them and avoid the long switches of play to the ball far side in build up that Nzoia is known to be very dangerous at, their structure allowed their central midfielders to mark Nzoia second and third phase players freely. Mpinzani wa leo ana roho ngumu sana, tumemfunga ila ameng’ang’ana mpaka mwisho. Kauli mbiu yake ni “Sipimi mpaka nikonde”.Tunarudia tena, ewe shabiki wa Bandari, usitafute raha, raha itakufuata ulipo 🙌#BandariNiYetu pic.twitter.com/oz9zw8yZ2p— Bandari Football Club (@BandariOfficial) March 12, 2023 This left the Millers frustrated and lost most balls in the build-up as they had to go long or a turnover was committed. The Bandari press was effective as the intelligence of Kasumba and Wadri enabled them to know when they would press the opposing centrebacks and trap them out wide by making sure the angles of approach did not allow them to be played past easily as when one pressed they made a curled run to shadow.Bandari were narrow and aggressive with their pressing structure, when Nzoia managed to get the ball centrally they did not give any space nor time on the ball to the Nzoia central players. In this phase of the game Bandari clearly hacked dynamic movement and positional manipulation to stifle the Nzoia build up.Mokaya Positioning Key to all? Kimani also had an ace up his sleeve: Mokaya. There has been constant questions asked about how Coach Kimani was fielding Mokaya with most stating that his technical security and footballing abilities were too good for him to be played out wide to create width for the team.Rainbow FC forward lands maiden call up to South Sudan senior national team after impressing at AFCON U20Given his ability to operate in tight spaces between the lines and his eye for a killer pass, fans wanted him more centrally. In this specific game, Mokaya was tasked with marshaling the midfield through the Left half spaces, he would drift to create triangles with the wingback, drop deep in build-up to add superiority in the first phase and also look to provide a ring of security next to Magige when out of possession. The positioning of Mokaya was a bold move and it clearly paid off with him providing an assist for the goal scored by Joe Waithira. The goal came by because of the neat combination play between Mokaya and Abdallah Hassan down the left, with Mokaya making a halfspace run and receiving the ball inside from Abdallah, and crossing first time to the underloaded side for Waithira to tap it into the net past the helpless Humphrey Katasi.No joy in channels for Nzoia.##NAJAVA_MECA_7099601##With the Bandari press causing major problems for Nzoia, the channels were the main ways of chance creation for Nzoia. The Bandari structure left a lot of room on the left channel and this way looked to open up chances for Nzoia and a little sharpness they could have sealed the game from that side. Tight and good defensive awareness by the Bandari back 3 left Nzoia frustrated as they could not get Felicien Okanda or Joseph Mwangi into play well, a very commendable performance by Bandari’s Magige who looked to cut out all central penetration by the opposition.Overall, though Nzoia did create some good chances, they were rather caught out in defensive transitions and the lapse in concentration defensively saw them get punished and concede their 13th goal of the season and drop valuable points in their chase of the title.
