The Portuguese tactician explains his plans for resumption of the top-flight after it was suspended owing to Covid-19 pandemic
Gor Mahia coach Carlos Manuel Vaz Pinto has explained his happiness at seeing FKF Premier League return after almost 50 days out without action owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Portuguese tactician, who stayed in Kenya after President Uhuru Kenyatta suspended sporting activities owing to a spike in numbers of the Covid-19 cases on March 26, 2021, has told Goal the Kenyan champions are ready to kick the ball again when action resumes on Saturday.
“It is very good when you come back to your job, we missed this a lot and it’s important to improve again our players to be ready to resume the action and to be honest we are ready for the action,” Vaz Pinto told Goal.
“It was very good today [Tuesday], training together, not only the coach missed such training sessions but also the players, and they have put in a lot of commitment, and these training sessions were very good and now we are very anxious to resume the league.”
Pinto has, however, bemoaned the tight schedule the teams will face when the league will resume insisting his main target is to make sure he protects his players from big injuries.
“Because the schedule changed again we need to plan about the new schedule because of that tomorrow [Wednesday] we have a meeting with my staff to plan this again,” Pinto continued.
“But what we expect of course is one schedule, not like very crowded because we stopped playing around 50 days ago and this is too much and it is not easy for the players.
“We need to prevent injuries and big injuries because we did not have enough time to do a new pre-season and now we have maybe short time to prepare for the first game and we need to take care about our players this is now what we are planning and my hope is to prevent injuries.”
The fixture for resumption of the league was once again altered after FKF pushed opening matches to May 14 to allow all players and officials of the 18 clubs in the league to undergo mandatory Covid-19 tests.
The exercise was conducted on Tuesday with Gor Mahia among the teams whose players were tested others being Bidco United, Mathare United, KCB FC, Kariobangi Sharks, Posta Rangers, and Kakamega Homeboyz.
Western Stima, Nairobi City Stars, AFC Leopards, Bandari FC, Tusker FC, Nzoia Sugar will be tested on Wednesday, at the Evangelic Harvest fellowship church, Ligi Ndogo grounds, GEMS Cambridge, Mbaraki grounds, Ruaraka grounds, and Sudi Stadium, respectively.
Ulinzi Stars, Sofapaka, Wazito, and Vihiga United will close the Covid-19 testing exercise on Thursday at the Eastleigh High School (Sofapaka), Marist College (Wazito), Senede High School (Vihiga).
Gor Mahia will face Nairobi City Stars in their first match at Kasarani Annex on Sunday.