Unfulfilled talent is one of the most frustrating aspects of sport for professional athletes, their coaches, as well as their commercial rights owners. Every athlete lives in fear of being unable to perform at the top level as well as meeting individual expectations.
Football’s history is filled with players that showed glimpses of greatness early in their careers but went on to be nothing more than average professionals. These situations can happen for a variety of reasons.
Perhaps a scout misidentified the level of talent that existed within a prospect. In other cases, injuries can stealing a player’s physical gifts. However, there are always players whose mentality does not allow them to succeed, whether it is through ‘self-sabotage’ or simply a lack of desire.
Jamal ‘Malo’ Mohammed is among the many Kenyan footballers that had the talent necessary to be world-class only for his talented career to end prematurely. His drive and passing, along with strong and robust style made him a darling of many on any pitch but as fate would have it, his career didn’t last long.
As Kenyans were expecting to see Jamal turn into another Kenyan football icon, his lifestyle took a toll on him and he quickly exited the stage. In the last four years, the Majengo-born Jamal has made the headlines for nothing to do with football.
In an interview at his home, Jamal blames himself for wasting his talent and partly the football management.
“There are a lot of things that contributed to me quitting football, some of which I take full responsibility for. I would have done things differently,” he says.
But even with the talent, a particular section of the country believes that Jamal had not used the gift to his best. He had a penchant for changing clubs at an alarming rate, at times he has played a starring role for a club, two months later he was without a club something that didn’t go well with fans.
He says he allowed negativity from both fans and media dominate him instead of concentrating on football which led him into fighting mental battles that played a key role in his exit.
“I shouldn’t have given up. I listened to a lot of negativity. I lost hope when things didn’t go my way. If I had decided to concentrate on what I believed in, then I would have had a longer and probably a more successful career,” he says.
In a number of occasions, the former Mathare United player found himself on the wrong side for various reasons.
“I was on many occasions accused of indiscipline. But those that know me will tell you that I was a disciplined player. The only thing that made me be labeled as an indisciplined player is my mouth. I would not sit down and watch things go wrong. I would speak. I am this kind of a person that would not keep quite. With this I was labeled a ‘destroyer,” he says.
Despite believing that whatever he was doing was for his benefit and that of the team, he regrets that was not the case as it affected his career on the pitch.
“How I wish I would have kept quiet at times. I wish I knew that as much as I was expressing myself, I was also destroying my career. I wish I would have known where I came from and where I was heading to. No matter how much you try to salvage a situation, what is in the public domain speaks a lot,” he says.
A knee injury that he sustained while playing in Europe was the last straw to his career.
“I had a knee injury when I moved to Oman. But unlike in other countries, when you get to Arab countries you never get treated but you are given pain killers to get you going. There, you either play or they get a replacement. I had to endure that in order to play until when I realised that the injections were affecting me and had to stop using them,” he said.
He decided to take back seat and have the injury recover, which turned out to be the turning point.
“As I was rehabilitating, I set up a business that within a short time, started to do well. With this, I thought if this (business) can sustain me, then I should take a break from football to make it grow only to find myself relaxing completely. In the process, the fans kept on asking if I stopped playing and this felt like the best thing to do,” he says.
The Milimani Secondary School alumnus feels that despite playing for national team Harambee Stars and even having professional stints across the globe, he didn’t achieve his goal.
“As much as football made me who I am today, I feel I didn’t achieve my goal. I didn’t get to where I wanted. With my talent I wanted to play in one of the European top leagues,” he regrets.
He cites lack of visionary coaches, scouts and agents in the country as the reason for his failure to fulfill his dream.
“To get someone who can walk with you on the journey and make sure you succeed here in Kenya is not easy. Kenya is full of selfish brokers. Be it coaches or agents. They take advantage of you. A number of players, even some who are yet to play in the Kenyan Premier League have lost interest because there is no one to help and guide them. We need to streamline how we handle players or else we will continue to see a lot of talents go to waste,” he says.
Among the players that Jamal says were let down by lack of good agents are Sunday Odhiambo, Antony Mathenge, Osborne Monday, Hillary Echesa and Humphrey Mieno.
“These are players that would have walked into any European league. But because of some well known reasons, they have had their careers crushing,” he added.
Jamal has a soft spot for former national team coach Adel Amrouche, who connected him to Oman in 2012 where he played for three clubs. Amrouche was by then coaching Burundi while Jamal was on the verge of an early exit following the death of Liberty Professional founder Alhaj Sly Tetteh.
“Tetteh gave me all the connections that I needed to play at the top level but when he died I lost hope and had even contemplated quitting football. But Amrouche, who had been watching me play came calling and brought me back to football and took me to Oman despite not playing for close to two years. He gave me a football lifeline,” he explains.
Tetteh died September 3, 2011 when playing a charity match in Cape Coast, Ghana
In 2008 while playing in Sweden, Jamal missed out on what would have a dream opportunity to play in Norway when his move to Valarenga collapsed just hours before he could put pen to paper.
“The club was willing to sign me for Sh140m and were preparing for the signing session but it didn’t happen. The morning I was to sign, I woke up to the news that the coach had been sacked. I was heartbroken. I waited to see if the new coach would have me sign but he opted to look for a striker and so my dream was shattered,” he said.
Despite the shortcoming, Malo is happy with the ‘little’ football has done for him.
“Football has helped me a lot. I appreciate what football has done to me. There were a number of better and talented players than me in Majengo and Pumwani but I am among the few that football gave something,” he says.
Jamal’s star started rising as young as seven years when he turned up for Pumwani’s Sakayonza and Uprising in youth tournaments before moving to Mathare United.
While in the Mathare junior team, he was so impressive that he was drafted in the senior team that consisted of the likes of John Qureishy, Ali Mohammed, Simeon Mulama, Titus Odede and Francis Kimanzi while still in secondary school.
“It was a privilege to have been given an opportunity to play against those great players but it wasn’t easy for me to get into the team. As much as I was confident that I could win a place in that team, I waited patiently for my time and when it came, I never looked back,” he says.
He first move abroad was in 2006 when he signed for Liberty on a short-term contract.
With his great display of skills and set pieces, he caught the attention of a few scout from Europe, one of which was the Swedish club, Enkopings SK in 2007. Two years later, he moved to Kuwait where he played for Kazma SC before moving back to Europe in 2011 to join Romanian side FCM Tirgu Mures, making only six appearances.
In December 2012, he moved back to Kenya and rejoined Mathare United on a one-year contract.
During the first leg of the season, he fell out with one of the coaching staff members over what the coach termed as gross misconduct. After claims of lacking focus, commitment and drive during the club’s training sessions, Mathare United’s management decided to terminate his contract thus putting an end to his one-year contract with the club before he moved to Oman until 2016.
Jamal got his first Harambee Stars call-up in 2008. He made his first appearance and scored his first goal on September 6, 2008 in a 1-0 win over Namibia in the second round of the 2010 Fifa World Cup qualifiers. Jamal is disappointed with the current state of football in Kenya.
“I started playing when a team would play two matches on a weekend and the stadiums would be packed but at the moment we are not seeing the same. We are seeing Premier League matches being played in estates. Surely what’s the difference between KPL and Kothbiro if matches can be played on estate grounds like Camp Toyoyo,” Jamal quips.
He also rued the fact that players are not earning as much as they should in the Kenyan football pyramid.
“It pains that you still meet a player asking you to pay his house rent or feed his family. This should come to a stop. With this Covid-19 we are seeing players from other countries being asked for a pay cut but while in Kenya the players are asking for the pay,” he observes.
He is disappointed by FKF chairman Nick Mwendwa for the current state of football in the country.
“He has let the youth and everyone that believed in him down. With how he had managed Kariobangi Sharks, I saw a visionary leader only for him to kill Kenyans’ hopes. It’s very sad that he still wants to vie,” he says.
Apart from his business, Jamal is in the process of becoming a football agent with a hope of giving Kenyan football more opportunities.