McKinstry's Kenyan reunion presents clash of similar styles ahead of Gambia's encounter against Harambee Stars
Gambia's coach Johnathan McKinstry has an intimate understanding of Kenyan football having walked across its touchlines when he led Gor Mahia to two league titles and a Super Cup during a two-year spell that spanned from July 2022 to June 2024.
McKinstry became Gambia's coach in June 2024 and his familiarity with Kenyan football is further enhanced by his experience coaching the national teams of Rwanda (March 2015 – August 2016) and Uganda (September 2019 – April 2021), assignments which saw him play Kenya four times with all contests ending in stalemates.
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Gambia is the fourth national team he is coaching, having also managed Sierra Leone from April 2013 to September 2014, an experience that made him the youngest national football team coach in the world at the time.
Those echoes of the 39-year old Northern Irishman's past exploits in Kenya and the Great Lakes region will resonate in the air as he prepares the Scorpions for a crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier match against Kenya and, the recent of appointment 47-year old South African Benni McCarthy as Harambee Stars coach has given him something exciting to look forward to when the two teams clash at the Alassane Outtara Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at 10 pm on Thursday.
The match will mark the first time that Gambia and Kenya are playing against each other, with the West African nation becoming the 55th country that Harambee Stars have played against in official matches.
While Gambia and Kenya remain strangers to each other, during a recent interview with FlashScore, McKinstry expressed familiarity with Kenyan football and Benni McCarthy's coaching career and philosophy that has him expecting Harambee Stars to play more vibrantly than they would have in the past.
"If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said that Kenya would play defensively and try to score from set-pieces. However, with McCarthy in charge right now I do not think that will be the case. McCarthy's teams attack and press continuously," McKinstry, who is adherent to attacking football, told FlashScore.
While making a comparison to his own experience when he took over Gambia, who were known for playing defensively under their previous coach, the Belgian Tom Saintfeit, McKinstry reckoned that time constraints would not hinder McCarthy, who was unveiled as Harambee Stars coach on March 3, from promptly imparting his coaching philosophy on his players.
"McCarthy had an incredible football career and he is a vastly experienced coach. His attacking and forward-thinking mentality was appreciated at Manchester United where he was a first-team coach and I believe even with the little time he has had with the team, it is enough for him to switch Harambee Stars to playing attacking football," McKinstry stated.
As explained by Gambian sports journalist Amadou Tamba, McKinstry's promotion of attacking football was a big departure from the conservative playing style that the Scorpions were known for when they were under Saintfeit, who is undeniably Gambia's most successful coach having guided them to their first two AFCON appearances (2021 and 2023) during his six years in charge (2018 – 2024).
"Saintfeit was a results-driven coach and despite elevating Gambian football to the point of reaching an AFCON quarterfinal in 2021 and winning a competitive away match for the first time in 30 years in 2019, fans did not like how the team played. Gambian football fans appreciate attacking football and with McKinstry at the helm now, fans watch the national team with more excitement," Tamba told The Eastleigh Voice.
According to Tamba, McKinstry has also struck a chord with Gambian fans when it comes to national team call-ups, a subject which Gambians constantly challenged Saintfeit over as they questioned his puzzling team selections.
"Unlike Saintfeit, McKinstry tends to prioritise consistency and form when picking players, something which the fans appreciate. During Saintfeit's time, fans used to be uncomfortable with his selections because he picked players who were either unattached, out of form or were fringe players at their clubs. However, as results can attest, Saintfeit somehow managed to bring the best out of those unpopular selections," Tamba explained.
Gambia coach Johnathan McKinstry shares a moment with coaches and players of Colley Stars, a Gambian football club.
Speaking to Gambia Football Federation media about his squad selection for the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier matches against Kenya and Ivory Coast, McKinstry emphasised the observation shared by Tamba, stating: "Gambia has over 200 players playing professionally in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. I make an effort to track their performances so that I identify players who are playing well consistently and it is my job to translate their club form to the national team."
McKinstry was speaking on Monday evening at the team's training camp in Ivory Coast, where he trained with 15 players on Monday evening before having the whole group together for Tuesday's session after the remaining players had arrived.
"The mood in the camp is lively and energetic. Players are happy to see each other again after five months since the last international break was in November last year," McKinstry had told GFF media.
Gambia are hosting the match in Ivory Coast as they do not have a CAF-approved stadium in their country, a situation which Tamba finds is unfair to Gambia since the country has football grounds that meet international standards.
"With all due respect, we have better grounds than some countries whose stadiums have been approved by CAF," Tamba said.
Similar to Kenya, Gambia last played a competitive match at home in 2021. Since then they have been hosting their home matches in Morocco, with whose federation the GFF has a Memorandum of Understanding with.
"We would have hosted Kenya in Morocco if we weren't playing away to Ivory Coast immediately after our encounter," Tamba stated before adding that the GFF's MoU with Morocco has made it cheaper for them to host matches in the North African country than in neighbouring Senegal which has several CAF-approved stadiums and a huge population of Gambians.
While Kenya is scheduled to host Gabon at the Nyayo National Stadium on March 23 following CAF's approval, Tamba expressed hope that Gambia will also be cleared to host matches at home before the end of the year as that will be crucial to improving the team's performance.
"We are confident we would have qualified for AFCON 2025 if we had played our matches at home. There are matches we would not have lost if they were played in Gambia," Tamba said.
Johnathan McKinstry and Gambian sports journalist Amadou Tamba during a past interview.
As Gambia continues to make do with hosting home matches in neutral venues, McKinstry, while speaking to GFF media, expressed confidence in his team having enough quality to overcome Kenya and Ivory Coast.
Gambia had already lost their first two World Cup qualifier matches (3-2 to Burundi and 2-0 to Ivory Coast) by the time McKinstry took over. His entry saw the team adapting quickly to his methods as they registered their biggest victory in 24 years with a 5-1 win over Seychelles in their third World Cup qualifier match. However, that revival was short-lived as the team followed up that result with a narrow 3-2 loss to Gabon, leaving them two points below fourth-placed Kenya in fifth place in Group F with just three points.
"We still have a hill to climb and we have to get going. We face two tough teams who present challenges that require different approaches and we have the quality to get six points from Kenya and Ivory Coast," McKinstry told GFF media.
Unlike Benni McCarthy's 23-man squad for the match against Gambia which comprises two local-based players (goalkeeper Faruk Shikhalo and midfielder Ben Stanley Omondi), McKinstry did not give a call-up to players featuring in the domestic leagues.
Tamba admits that the contrast in the composition of the local-based players in both squads speaks volumes about the difference in quality between both countries' domestic leagues, one which also highlights the struggles Gambia occasionally faces in their quest to qualify for CHAN competitions.
"Our league is still amateur and most of our players get opportunities abroad while they are still young. So there is a gap we have to close to have a strong domestic league that can compete with the rest of the continent," Tamba said before stating that Gambia's upcoming CHAN 2025 final qualifying round clash against Algeria in May will be a test to how much the nation has progressed in strengthening its domestic league.
Despite the dearth of national-team quality players in Gambia's local leagues, Tamba lauded McKinstry's effort to change that by travelling around the country to watch league matches and, work with club and national youth team coaches.
"While he did not call up a local-based player, McKinstry still spends a lot of time watching Gambian football in stadiums and visiting clubs at their training grounds in search of players who can add value to the national team," Tamba explained.
Gambia's squad for the Harambee Stars match includes Spanish-born goalkeeper Musa Dibaga (Inverness, Scotland), stalwart Omar Colley (PAOK, Greece), and youngster Yankuba Minteh (Brighton and Hove Albion, England) – players whose profiles reflect that McKinstry has shaped his squad around the past, present and future of Gambian football.
Musa Dibaga, 24, represents a new legion of Gambian national team footballers whose skills McKinstry, as Tamba explains, is keen to tap on and will be the legacy of his stint with the Gambian national football team.
"McKinstry has been keen on strengthening the national team with European footballers of Gambian descent. Apart from Dibaga, there are others he has spotted and talked to with the hope of including them in the national team in future," Tamba said before adding that even though McKinstry's contract ends in June 2026, he has commenced a process which future national team coaches can carry on with.
Captain Omar Colley, 32, is a monument of the success of Gambia's youth football structure, one which, as Tamba shared, inspired football officials from neighbouring Senegal to emulate after a benchmarking session in Gambia's capital. Banjul.
"Senegal's current success in African youth football is inspired by borrowing our blueprint," Tamba said.
Colley was a member of the Gambia squad that won the AFCON U17 tournament in 2009 and he is the country's most-capped player with 56 appearances.
Yankuba Minteh, 20, is undoubtedly Gambia's most promising player and his inclusion in the squad is a symbol of McKinstry's appreciation for young players. McKinstry's 24-man squad for Kenya and Ivory Coast has only four players who are more than 27 years old, espousing a belief in youth that is shared by Harambee Stars coach Benni McCarthy.
"If you are good enough, you are old enough," McCarthy had said in a recent interview with FKF media recently to emphasise that he will not hesitate to give promising young players a chance to prove themselves.
Also working with McKinstry to get the best out of Gambia's youthful squad is Kenyan Performance and Analysis Coach, Mikael Igendia, whom Tamba describes as a professional who is knowledgeable about the sport.
"I have interacted with Igendia briefly and he understands the sport very well. He is definitely someone who can help not only improve the Gambian national football team but also develop himself with the experience he gets here," Tamba said.
With Gambia being a Muslim majority country, the Scorpions preparations for the match against Kenya have influenced a change to the team's normal routine to accommodate the Ramadhan fast, which all of McKinstry's players are observing.
McKinstry admitted to GFF media that even though the situation marks the first time he is coaching a national team during Ramadhan, his previous experiences working in Muslim majority countries like Bangladesh and Sierra Leone have prepared him well enough to ensure his players still give their best despite observing the fast.
"We had to change our travel arrangements a bit and had to make special meal arrangements at the hotel we are staying in. Also, we have to train at night after the players have broken their fast," McKinstry told GFF media.
During his interview with FlashScore, McKinstry stated that even though he is intimately familiar with Kenyan football, he does not rule out Kenya surprising him with a bolt from the blue.
"Knowing Kenyan players does not mean I know what their game plan is going to be," he said.
Whether or not there will be any surprises on Thursday night, there is no denying that the contest against Kenya will be more than just a match for McKinstry. It will be a reunion that will test his evolution as a football coach and as his past catches up with his present, the football pitch will be the ultimate judge.
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