Kenya’s Woodwork Curse in Rabat Ends in Tears Against Morocco
Football can be a deeply poetic game, but for Kenya on this night at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat, it was simply cruel. A spirited Harambee Stars performance produced seven shots that refused to cross the line, several of which rebounded off the woodwork, leaving the East African side empty-handed and its players in tears at the final whistle, according to Capital FM Nairobi as reported by AllAfrica.
The match told a familiar story for travelling Kenyan sides: moments of genuine promise undone by the slenderest of margins. The woodwork, as so often in football, proved the cruellest of opponents. Time and again, Kenyan players watched efforts cannon back from the frame of the goal, the ball dropping harmlessly away or being scrambled clear by a relieved Moroccan defence.
For Morocco, the result maintained their strong record on home soil. The Atlas Lions have long been one of the continent’s heavyweight footballing nations, and the Olympic Stadium in Rabat is one of Morocco’s most storied footballing venues, hosting national team fixtures of every description. Playing in familiar conditions, the hosts did enough to ensure the result went their way, even as Kenya pushed them harder than the final margin suggested.
The defeat leaves Kenya reflecting on what might have been. Seven clear chances, none converted, is the kind of statistic that haunts dressing rooms. In a tournament setting or a qualifying campaign, such wastefulness in front of goal is punished ruthlessly, and the Harambee Stars will know that performances of this calibre must be paired with a clinical edge if results are to follow.
Football rarely offers second chances, and for Kenya the long flight home will give plenty of time to ponder the cruel geometry of posts, crossbars and rebounds. Seven shots, seven near-misses and zero goals: a night in Rabat that summed up the sport at its most heartbreaking.
Sources
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