Too close! Gallant RMS FC come out second in La Liga media tourney

Too close! Gallant RMS FC come out second in La Liga media tourney

Too close yet so far. This sums up the feeling and the gallant fight put up by Royal Media Services  Football Club at the 2021 La Liga media tourney held Sunday at the Goan Institute in Nairobi.

Fired up for the challenge, RMS FC managed by Matthews Mutai and captained by the indefatigable Danny Ogega showed the thirst to bag the title but fell at the last hurdle. Luck, they say, can smile your way but on this particular day the football gods conspired to deny RMS FC victory right beneath their nose.

They had braved it all to qualify out of their group but lost to Capital FC in the final, in post-match penalties.

After a barren draw in the normal time, RMS  FC missed four of their penalties to surrender the trophy to the experienced Capital team despite RMS goalkeeper Godfrey Ashiali rescuing three penalties.

Ashiali, you can never doubt his instincts. He is a great shotstopper and this was  evidenced on Sunday when he made good use of his reflexes to stop three penalties effectively becoming man of the match in the final.

Penalties, after all, are lotteries, but the Maalim Juma road based side who had undergone just a few days of team training will take positives from their performance.

RMS captain Dan Ogega who covered every blade of grass applauded his team mates for displaying quality football apart from training for a few days to the tournament.

“We can say that we won because we turned out against experienced teams that train regularly and came out second,” explained the rugged Ogega.

The captain has at the same time said that they will be going back to their drawing board to prepare to lift other tournaments in future.

“We want to assure them that the next time the trophy will be ours for keeps,” said a confident Ogega.

Meanwhile Technical Director Isaac Swila said that the management will accord the team all the support as it bids to join the élite media football clubs in the county.

“Watch this space. This is just the start, we will do all it takes to ensure the team continues with its upward trajectory.”

On the road to the final, RMS lost their opening group match 4-0 to Goal.com, held Standard Media to a four-all draw before recovering to beat Radio Africa 2-1. At the  semis they showed little respect to the hyped Nation Media Group bundling them out in the penalty shootouts.

La Liga delegate in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia Beatrice Garcia congratulated all the participating teams terming the tournament a success.

“We wish to congratulate all the teams especially winners and runners up for a wonderful tournament which is a start of other beautiful things in the coming days between La Liga and media industry in Kenya.”

A total of eight media houses participated in the one day tournament held to commemorate 90 years of Spanish league La Liga.

Nationa Media and Goal.com were bundled at the semis with Standard, Radio Africa, CGTN and Homeboyz exiting at the group stage.

RMS FC squad

Godfrey Ashiali, Mercy Kabaka, Danny Ogega, Luqman Mahmoud, Emmanuel Ochieng, Kenerickson Njeru, Lewis Njagi, Newton Andika, Herman Kamariki

Subs

Caro Kones, Geoffrey Mwmaburi

Coach – Matthews Mutai

 

 

Tags:

La Liga Beatrice Garcia Capital FC Media tourney RMS FC

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