The former Harambee Stars tactician has been out of work since leaving Wazito in 2022.
Former Harambee Stars head coach Francis Kimanzi has revealed the reasons he believes he can still compete with the very best coaches in Africa and possibly beyond.
The tactician last served in a football dugout for Wazito FC before being sacked in January 2022, is a UEFA A license holder, who added coaching strings to his bow with the Netherlands football federation.
Kimanzi, 47, believes that researching a lot is the only way to become a better coach through new information gained adding that he jumps at any opportunity to further his knowledge.
“If you want to compete in the future amongst the best, you have to (research more),” he said. “I spend a lot of time in the public library and even the private one at home because I like to do a lot of research,” he added.
“Every time there is an opportunity for me to advance football development wise, I have to keep learning more and more.
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“I am very motivated by some coaches around Africa and I see that they are developing all the time and I feel sometimes I have an opportunity to compete with all of them. It cannot come when I am seated and I must do that from any level I work.”
Kimanzi, who has also served as Tusker and Mathare United tactician has stressed the importance of applying science in the future to make his next teams competitive.
“Everything is becoming more and more scientific. If you do not prepare the players you keep them on the analog side. Sometimes it is good to check if what you are doing is the right thing compared to other top coaches in the world.”
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Alongside a couple of colleagues, Kimanzi started a coaching course at the Goan Institute in Juja, Thika but stopped it. He is, however, a CAF A license trainer with the Football Kenya Federation.
“Everytime I went to Holland, I met the same guys we started doing the C license with and mistakenly, they thought I was from Suriname because it is assumed that when you are black there, you are Surinamese.
“They realized that I was from Africa and Kenyan when they noticed I could not speak Dutch and so they asked what I do with the knowledge whenever I go back to Kenya because there are some who did not know that football is played in Kenya and I told them that I try to help coaches in the community (with the knowledge gained).
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“I started it because there are alot of Kenyan coaches who coach, but are not qualified to coach. They just mobilize players and one way or another, produce quality, but you have to give them guidelines and principles in training from the grassroots.
“From those courses, the Netherlands academy which sponsored me thanks to the CSR programme were concerned as to whether I was giving something back home, which is why we started it.
“The Dutch are very good at developing youth coaches and they give many people opportunities because they believe that every player deserves an opportunity, and they deserve good care which comes in the form of being taught by good teachers. A good teacher means a good coach.
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“We decided to teach these coaches, and I was given mandate by the federation as an ambassador to do that, which I did with lots of passion, because every time I coached a group of coaches aged between 20 and 25, within three to four years, I would see three to four coaches active and doing things the right way.
“I still do it, but on a very small scale because the FKF has the right to do their sessions and when you do something parallel to them, it creates some friction and fights because they think you are doing it for money.”
Under Kimanzi, Kenya achieved its highest-ever FIFA ranking of 68 in 2008.