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JOSE MARCELO FERREIRA : THE WORST GOR MAHIA COACH IN LIVING MEMORY



No matter how you look at it, 2016 was the worst year in Gor Mahia's recent history. To put it into perspective, consider the following facts: 2016 remains the only year since 2013 that Gor Mahia has failed to win the league tittle. It was also the first year since 2012 that Gor failed to reach the 60 point mark, let alone surpass it. It was the year Gor Mahia scored the least number of goals since 2013. It was the the only season Gor Mahia top goal scorer failed to get past the 10 goal mark for the season. The only question is, who orchestrated this massive failure? It was one little-known Brazilian going by the name Jose Marcelo Ferreira or "Ze Maria". 
Jose Marcelo Fereira "Ze Maria" was the man hand picked by Ambrose Rachier to replace the hugely successful Frank Nuttal. Being a Brazilian by birth, many expected him to bring to Gor Mahia a brand of expansive attacking football spiced with intricate passing and flair that Brazilians are famed for. But what did he do? He stifled the attack, killed the midfield creativity and put all his mind on defending deep. He basically drained any element of entertainment from play and introduced a Robert Matano style of long balls and crosses targeting the stickers' heads. The output of creative midfielders and strickers plummeted like an elephant dropped from chopper. It turned out that the only thing "Brazilian" about him was his name.

 THE NUMBERS
Numbers do not lie, do they? Compared to 2015 season when Gor Mahia almost swept all trophies on offer while playing breathtakingly beautiful football under Nuttal, 2016 was a year to forget: no trophy, huge losses in the hands of title rivals and docked 3 points for crowd troubles. Things couldn’t have been worse. Coach Ze Maria was clueless like a deer in the headlights. He had only one line of defense: "The team has not internalized my methods, be calm, results will improve". Patience is not one of the attributes of Gor Mahia fans but surprisingly, they gave it to Ze Maria. But things were only getting worse. Ze Maria's style was never entertaining nor producing results. Compared to Nuttal’s final season (2015) when Gor Mahia scored a (then) record breaking 60 goals, they only managed a dismal 35 in the year 2016. This, despite fielding almost the same players as the previous season. Ze Maria's idea of how football ought to be played was open for all to see and Ambrose Rachier, the club's chairperson saw it. Ze Maria quickly lost his job. But it's what he did before that that grabs my attention.

PARKING THE BUS 
In Ze Maria's first season in charge there was no match where Gor Mahia scored more than 3 goals. In 2015 in contrast, Gor Mahia beat Mathare 4 -2, walloped KCB 6 – 1, thrashed Chemelil 4 – 1, before smacking Nakuru Allstars 5 – 0. Even more telling is the fact that Gor Mahia’s leading scorer was distant forth in the league under Ferreira. Jacques Tuyisenge, lethal as he is, scored only 10 league goals for the season. George Odhiambo managed 6, a mere trifle considering that under former coach Frank Nuttal, Olunga alone had 19 goals, Kagere had 13 and Abondo 11. Were it not the extraordinary goal scoring exploits of Jesse Were, Gor Mahia could have easily taken the top three positions in the goal scoring charts in 2015. But one year down the line, they couldn't manage even one position among the top three. The contrast Is compelling.
With Ferraira Ze Maria focus was on defense but even in this he didn't do any better than than both his predecessor and successor. Under Nuttal, Gor Mahia conceded 5 goals in the first 4 games before going into a 10 game winning run in which they never conceded a goal. Nothing much can be said of Ze Maria’s defensive performance. Ze Maria’s Gor Mahia conceded 2 more goals than did Nuttal despite keeping the same defense that won the league unbeaten in 2015.

 COMPARING GOR MAHIA COACHES:
P
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
PNTS
League Rank
Frank Nuttal
30
24
6
0
60
12
+48
78
1
Ze Maria
30
15
12
3
35
14
+21
54*
2
Dylan Kerr 1
34
22
8
4
53
22
+31
74
1
Dylan Kerr 2
34
23
6
5
71
31
+40
75
1
Hassan Oktay (So far)
19
14
2
3
35
13
+22
44
1*
 
.
Note the number of league games played per season increased from 30 to 34 due to the increase of teams in the league from 16 to 18 in 2017. Ze Maria's record stands out from the rest like a sore thumb. He ranks lowest in goals scored, goal difference and most importantly pouints tally and league rank. In Dylan Kerr's second season, he almost went a whole season unbeated untill a late season drop in form denyied him the covetted record.

TALE OF THE TAPE
There is no single positive to be picked from Jose Ferreira's reign at Gor Mahia that fortunately came to an unceremonious end just a year into the job. Hassan Oktay was recently quoted as giving credit to Ze Maria with establishing the foundation for the possession based attacking brand of football that Gor Mahia currently plays but he either doesn't know what he's talking about or he is blatantly dishonest. The only thing we can credit Jose Marcelo Ferreira with is being the first Brazilain to manage in Kenya.
*Gor Mahia were deducted 3 points for crowd trouble
*Not the final position

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