Explainer: How McKinstry's Gor caged the Leopards in Mashemeji Derby

In football derbies, the team that is tactically shrewd and clinical carries the day, no matter the form of the teams, so goes the narrative.

At times, this theory is debunked, the odds-on favourites carry the day or the reverse suffices.

But, at times, the football gods decide otherwise, making the tie end in shared spoils – a win-win for both sets of fans.

Sunday’s Mashemeji derby – the 95^th clash between perennial failures AFC Leopards and perennial winners Gor Mahia, at the Nyayo National Stadium, could only yield one result: a win for K’Ogalo – the football purists would say, and indeed it passed.

First leg

The first installment clash gave a now too familiar script – Gor winning 2-0 only to complete a season’s double at a raucous Nyayo National Stadium on Sunday,  under a cloudy and pregnant Nairobi atmosphere.

But how did it end this way? How did Gor tick the boxes? 

Petrified Leopards

Leopards head Tomas Trucha had already conceded defeat to the title race and although mathematically it’s still possible for Ingwe to win the league as there are 24 points to play for -  this was a game for bragging rights as they push for the FKF Cup – but it seems fear consumed them by the sheer magnitude of the occasion.

Not even playing with a man more, after Gor’s goalie Kevin Omondi was granted marching orders, could calm their nerves.

In a post-match reflection, Gor Mahia head coach Jonathan McKinstry said he told his players to avoid long balls in order to tame the big cats’ runs.

The strategy worked as K’Ogalo got one again, over the old enemy.

According to the Northern Irish tactician, they had to be strategic yet clinical and patient to break through Leopards wall that until then, had  conceded only two goals - against Sofapaka and Tusker FC – since the year began.

“What we did was simple, we knew that Leopards play deep defensively and so we had to avoid long balls against them.

We had to be brave and get our two central midfielders on the ball behind the AFC (Leopards) backline then we would get a breakthrough.

Their (AFC Leopards) pressure line was the key to how we would play and run the game,” the Irishman stated.

 “We said to the players that AFC (Leopards) have a very clear strategy. They press high and leave their defenders deep which is the same style Man United are using which has made things tough for Eric Ten Hag this season,” he added.

The front five go really high but the defence drops deeper than they probably should. Now that’s great if the front five do their job and force the opponents to take long,” the Gor tactician explained, further twisting the knife on the already vanquished cat.

The former Rwanda national team coach managed to also thwart Leopards attacking weapons in substitutes Arthur Gitego and Brian Yakhama by depending on Joshua Onyango’s prowess in the air and one-on-one situations.

“When they brought on Yakhama and Gitego (Arthur) we were quite pleased about that because we knew they would go very direct.”

The win left Gor jolly,  dancing at the head of the KPL log,  on 57 points, staring at yet another title, their birth right  it seems, and a looming stab at continental football, as Ingwe’s title curse rolls onto its 26^th year.

The author is a dyed-in-wool Leopards Reporter who converted every titbit of the Sunday derby