A Tale of 2 Coaches - Is Ze Maria Underrated?

Ze Maria still in Nuttal's shadow

He has only been in charge of 15 league games and a section of the K’Ogalo nation are already getting restless with coach Ze Maria as Gor Mahia lie four points behind league leaders Tusker. Another 0-0 draw with Bandari made it 3 draws in the last five games, and with only 9 games to go, the fans are getting jittery.  While Ze Maria has maintained that his strategy includes laying foundations for the future, for a fanbase used to success in the recent past and with Frank Nuttal’s shadow never far off, nothing short of an unprecedented 4^th league win in a row will keep them happy. At first glance I thought that Ze Maria’s league record is not that bad, despite of protestations by the so-called Nuttal Orphans. Maybe we are performing ok and it is other teams that have improved their performances? Taking cue from a similar comparison I did a while back when Nuttal was in his 20^th league game, I thought the only way to find out is to compare his first 15 league games with that of his predecessor, and find out if his job is really that shoddy or whether all he needs is time.

	Matches	Won	Lost	Drawn	Points	Ave Points PG
Ze Maria	15	10	1	4	34	2.27
Frank Nuttal	15	10	1	4	34	2.27

  

As it turns out, Ze Maria’s and Frank Nuttal’s records are actually identical. So could it be that maybe fans took to Nuttal’s high tempo width and cross game as opposed to the deliberate and often intricate approach Ze Maria is trying to inculcate? Fans love goals and maybe we can use goals scored versus those conceded as a measure of how exciting the teams have been?

	Matches	Goals scored (& average per game)	Goals conceded (& average per game)
Ze Maria	15	20	5
Frank Nuttal	15	28	12

Here we see Nuttal’s side were generally more attack minded, scoring an average of 1.9 goals per game as opposed to Ze Maria’s 1.3 goals. Ze Maria was a defender and maybe he has focused on the defensive discipline as his team only concedes an average of 0.3 goals per game compared to Nuttal’s 0.8 conceded in his first 10 games.

It looks like all Ze Maria needs to do is ensure the team scores more goals and maybe he will win over the fans. 

The Teams That Kept Winning

UPDATE: Correction. In this post I originally erroneously mentioned that Logarusic's 2012 team had 7 wins on the trot while naming 8 teams they won against. With this correction, Ze Maria's team with 7 wins would be looking to equal the record and not surpass it. The table has been revised though the article remains the same so read it with that context in mind

On my last post on unbeaten streaks in the league, I promised to write something about the winning streaks as well. Before I go back in time to look at some of the historically long winning streaks in the league by Gor Mahia, let me first say something about José Marcelo Ferreira, otherwise better known as Ze Maria. The Brazilian takes K’Ogalo to the lakeside City of Kisumu for a premiership game against Kakamega Homeboyz. A win for Ze Maria will see him record his 8^th straight league victory thus surpassing the 7 game winning streak he currently shares with Zdravko Logarusic’ 2012 team. This is one more than Frank Nuttal set at the tail end of  2014 and beginning of the 2015 seasons and in mid 2015. Bobby Williamson’s longest winning streak was capped at 5 games. Ze Maria might not have won any trophy yet but he sure is proving to be just as good as his predecessors.  The following table shows the longest winning streaks in recent times including teams played and goals scored in the period.

Coach	Number of matches won	Clubs played Against	Goals For and Against
Zdravko Logarusic	8	Oserian, Ulinzi, Sony, AFC Leopards, Rangers, Karuturi, Tusker, Muhoroni Youth	13 – 2
Ze Maria	7	Sony, Bandari, Muhoroni Youth,  W Stima, Mathare, Sofapaka, Thika	12 – 1
Frank Nuttal	6	Muhoroni Youth, Ushuru, Mathare, Bandari, Chemelil, KCB	15 – 6
Frank Nuttal	6	Nakuru All Stars, Muhoroni Youth, Thika, Tusker, Chemelil, Thika	15 – 1

Fans of Logarusic will of course be able to point out that what he has going for him is that his list does include the old enemy AFC Leopards! 

Ze Maria - Pic courtesy of Soka

But how do these Gor Mahia teams compare to the legendary teams of the past? One has to look no further than the 1976 team which won 14 league games on the trot! Previously the 1972 team had won 11 consecutive league games, a feat matched by the 1985 team that won the league for the 3^rd time in a row. This team had previously in 1984 won 10 league games in a row, a feat matched by the history making 1987 team. Ze Maria definitely has his work cut out for him to match these achievements.  Let me summarize these in a table:

Team	Number of matches won	Clubs played Against	Goals For and Against
1976	14	Bata Bullets, Champion, MoW, Abeingo, Police, Maragoli, Police, Bata Bullets, Abaluhya, Prisons, Maragoli, Abeingo, Abaluhya, Champion	38 – 12
1972	11	Algenya, Bunyore, Nairobi Spurs, Kenya Army, Kenya Breweries, Black Mamba, Gema, Hakati, Prisons, Aselimbe, Police	34 – 7
1985	11	Kitale FC, Baruti, Maziwa, AFC Leopards, Rivatex, Nzoia, Shabana, Maziwa, KTM, Mombasa Wanderers, Kenya Breweries	30 – 6
1984	10	Benham, Cargo, Lake Warriors, Nzoia, KTM, Breweries, Transcom, Rivatex, Kisumu Posta, Kahawa	33 – 10
1987	10	Feisal, Busia Simba, Volcano, Kisumu All Stars, Lenana Warriors, Volcano, Breweries, Shabana, Reunion, Motcom	28 - 1

Trivia: The winning runs in 1972 and 1984 were stopped by our old enemy AFC Leopards (known as Abaluhya in the 70s)

Here’s to wishing Ze Maria’s boys all the best against Homeboyz and may the winning run continue!

A Tale of 3 Coaches - The Stats

I recently overheard fans debate about whom between current coach Frank Nuttal and former coaches Logarusic and Williamson had the better starts at K’Ogalo. The popular belief is that having lost just one game out of his first twenty league games at K’ogalo, Nuttal is the man. Well, I made a mental note to find out what the stats had to say about that.  

My findings, contrary to the outcome of the debate, was that Logarusic had the better start albeit just. In the first 20 games, loga won 14 and amassed 46 points against Nuttal’s 13 wins and 45 points. This translates to a win rate of 70% for Loga compared to 65% for Nuttal. Williamson won 12 and amassed 42 points, a win rate of 60%.

Fans however like an attacking game and if we are to judge an attacking side by the number of goals scored, then we see Nuttals side have the edge, scoring on average 1.75 per game. Loga’s team scored  on average 1.4 goals per game while Bobby’s was 1.25 per game. One might argue that Nuttal had both the benefit of club legend Danny Sserenkuma and the current trio of Kagere, Olunga and Abondo to work with but that’s academic. But is Nuttal just attack minded while Loga and Bobby were masters of defense?  Well, on that front it seems like Bobby was more defensive of the two, conceding just 8 in his first twenty games.

Coach	Wins	Draws	Losses	Points	Win %age	Goals (& ave. pg)	Goals conceded
Zdvarko Logarusic	14	4	2	46	70	28 (1.4)	11 (0.55)
Bobby Williamson	12	6	2	42	60	25 (1.25)	8 (0.4)
Frank Nuttal	13	6	1	45	65	35 (1.75)	12 (0.6)

This is all academic though as at the end of the day success is judged by trophies. Though Logarusic won 2 trophies, when it came to the one that mattered most, both Williamson and Nuttal triumphed where he failed. And now Nuttal has the opportunity to extend his bragging rights by defending the league crown, going unbeaten or even leading the club to CECAFA glory. Only time will tell.

Nuttal doing the business