Gitego has scored four goals for Leopards, but is still getting to grips with the physical nature of Kenyan football, which has left Trucha advising him on how officiating in Kenyan football is like.
AFC Leopards head coach Tomas Trucha has challenged Arthur Gitego to understand how Kenyan football’s officiating is after his goal helped inspire the club to victory against Nzoia Sugar last Sunday.
Gitego scored the club’s opening goal before another strike by Hassan Beja secured them all three points to help them maintain their surge up the table.
Trucha had demanded that Gitego added more to his game in order to help the team as a unit, but he has now scored four goals in as many appearances for the club since joining from Marine FC in Rwanda last January.
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Trucha believes that Gitego’s movement and stamina has improved since joining the club.
“He is improving, especially his fitness. He was a bit (short of ) his stamina before and he had good movement," Trucha said.
The Czech coach has demanded Gitego grew a thicker skin in Kenyan football, which he considers more physical than the Rwandan league,making it difficult for officials to blow for fouls for the sake of it.
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“I still believe he needs to understand the referees and how they work in Kenya because every country is different so he needs to be more clever and stronger to not give the opponents the chance to take the ball from him.
“He should not just expect to be given fouls but the main target for him is to score the goals, that is why we brought him in.”
Nonetheless, Trucha is happy that the lad has been confident infront of goal after failing to score in his first two appearances.
“It is important for him to score because if he had not scored, the game could have gone either way.”
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The 22-year-old, who scored 16 goals for Rwanda’s Marine FC in the last one-and-a-half seasons, previously featured for Heroes FC, Kiyovu Sports and Gicumbi FC.
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