Brilliant second half display earns the Slum boys crucial win against Homeboyz
Not since January of 2019 had Mathare United celebrated a win against Kakamega Homeboyz, but on Saturday at the MISC Kasarani, the Slumboys were able to end one of their longest runs without a win against a particular side when they secured a 2-0 victory over their visitors on matchday nine of the Premier League.
In one of their best performances of the season, John Kamau’s men secured the win through second-half goals from Donald Ange and an own goal by Eugene Okoth.
The win, the team’s third of the season, snapped a run of three games without a win and sent the lads up to 11th on the table with as many points.
It was a game of two halves at Kasarani, with Homeboyz dominating the opening stanza and Mathare making sure of the points in the second half.
Homeboyz could have gone ahead as early as the second minute when Estone Esiye curled a free kick just wide of the post.
The visitors would not stop there, and just eight minutes later, had their best chance yet when a defensive situation, while defending a corner, turned into a two-versus-one situation on the fastbreak. Fidel Otieno, earning only his second start of the season, would, however, not allow the advantage and foiled the play much to the relief of almost everyone at Kasarani.
This would, however, not be Homeboyz’s best chance of the game; that would come in the 17th minute when Rodgers Ouma blasted an attempt from inside the area up against the upright. It was a head-in-hands moment for the midfielder and his teammates, and it would mark their last sniff of goal.
The visitors would be made to pay for their profligacy in the second half. Musa Masika and Paul Kinyanjui would come in at the restart, as they had done numerous times last season, and immediately the changes would prove a masterstroke from the gaffer.
Masika was heavily involved in the two goals, as he superbly held up play on the left wing before playing in Nyawir, whose two crosses into the box were directed into the net.
If the first goal came fortuitously, then the second was nothing other than excellent centre-forward play by Ange, who rose highest to power a header past Edwin Omwadani for his first goal of the season.
With the win, Mathare ends a run of 10 consecutive games without a win against Homeboyz.