Football coach defies gender bias

In a game dominated by men, one woman has emerged to take her place as a football coach.

Florence Adhiambo gives the impression of a laidback young woman, but her achievements as a football coach tell a different story.

Early this year, Adhiambo was just minutes away from becoming the first ever Kenyan coach to take a football team to the World Cup.

She had taken the national under-20 women’s team to the brink of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, but was stopped by Tunisia.

Women’s football has been neglected in Kenya over the years, but Adhiambo is one of the few Kenyan women footballers who have persevered at with game. She now hopes the Football Kenya Federation will focus on the team.

Until she was named coach of the national women’s under-20 team, very few Kenyans had heard of her. In fact, when she was appointed, some people questioned her credentials.

“Many thought it was a joke,” Adhiambo says. She did not immediately believe it when she heard from friends about her appointment.

After consulting with her husband, Habil Nanjero, also a former national women’s coach, she took up the challenge and reported for duty.
She says she has come a long way, from being regarded as a nobody to being treated like a hero.

With Adhiambo at the helm of the team’s technical bench, the girls came very close to qualifying for the World Cup, losing 2-1 to Tunisia.

By then Kenya had beaten Lesotho and Zambia — beating Lesotho 2-0 in Nairobi and drawing 2-2 away, losing 2-1 to Zambia and then winning them 4-0 in Nairobi.

Adhiambo says it was a great adventure that has opened her eyes as a coach, and set the stage for greater things to come.

The mother of four has turned her house into a small soccer home. They eat, drink and sleep soccer.

Adhiambo met her husband while playing football. Nanjero was her coach when she was a national team player. Since then, he has played a big role in her career by pushing her into coaching.

Nanjero says he had seen the potential in her from the time she was playing in the national team, and also at club level.

He is very proud of her achievements and believes she has a great future in coaching.

The couple train together and play together at the dusty — sometimes muddy — local pitch in Buruburu, Nairobi, where they both coach at the Sports Connect Academy.

According to Nanjero, Adhiambo, who is now the head coach of the under-18 girls at the academy, has shown great leadership qualities and helped the young players to excel.

She started off as a coach at the Musa Otieno Foundation in Jericho estate; Musa Otieno was a long serving Kenya captain and is now the assistant coach of South African club Santos.

Adhiambo later teamed up with her husband at the academy. Nanjero says when on the pitch, they maintain a high level of professionalism and very few people know they are a couple.

Adhiambo was lured into football by her brother and she has never looked back. Football was always her dream career and she enjoys it. She says football helped her keep away from social vices.

Away from football, she is a housewife who cooks and cleans for her family, and takes care of her children.

Nanjero says he will never get in the way of his wife’s coaching career.

“I always help her when she needs assistance,” he says.

Adhiambo believes women’s football can take its rightful place in Kenya if soccer authorities make it a priority.

“At least I am happy Kenya now has a women’s football league, but I pray that one day the profile of the women’s game rises to the same level as the men’s league.”