By Bismarck Mutahi

When Harambee Stars started their campaign for the 2010 World Cup/ Nations Cup the main target was South Africa, which it still is.

We, however, didn’t have the best of starts after being clawed 2-1 by Tunisia’s Carthage Eagles in the opener at the Coca Cola Stadium and I fear even the Nations Cup in Angola could be a long shot.

It is not because of the loss to Tunisia that I feel the World Cup dream is over but it is because of how the football fathers are handling the national team.

After losing to Tunisia, I expected Football Kenya Limited Technical Director, Patrick Naggi to plan ahead but instead he tells us the reason we lost was because of black magic.

He is on record saying a Mathare United physiotherapist was responsible for the mistakes that our defenders made against Tunisia and lost a match we should have won.

Naggi claims it was not the poor tactics of Stars coach Antoine Hey that cost us victory but Mathare United who ensured it only rained around the Coca Cola Stadium that day.

The Mathare Juju men ensured Stars defenders slipped instead of clearing the ball while the Tunisians could not slip and let in goals from the Kenyan strikers so we may believe.

I first thought it was an April Fools Day story but unfortunately the juju story was carried on April 6 and not April 1.

I expected our technical director to tell us we lost because we played poorly on the day but we will recover against the Super Eagles of Nigeria in June.

However, Naggi has refused to talk tactics and decided that Kenyans should all blame Mathare United and ensure their physio is nowhere near the national team otherwise it will rain and we will lose again!

What I don’t understand though is that why is the same Mathare United, who are supposed to have the powers to influence matches, struggling in the Kenyan Premier League?

The league champions are currently in position 10 in the KPL standings and they even lost to Chemelil Sugar at Kasarani last Sunday.

I expected it was going to rain that day only around the Kasarani Stadium so that Chemelil defenders could slide while clearing their lines and Mathare strikers could walk the ball into the net.

Just like my colleague Robin Toskin had argued in his column last week, we lost the Tunisia match because of poor tactics and nothing else.

If we don’t prepare now and address our failures then we will get a real thrashing in Nigeria and again we will blame the dreaded black magic from West Africa.

I will not be surprised to be told that we lost because it rained in our own half while the Nigerians were experiencing sunshine in their own half.

Let’s change the way we approach issues to do with the national team or forget the Nations Cup in Angola.