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The Kenya Police star is set to turn up for the national team in the Four-Nations tournament but his journey to the top has been littered with several obstacles
When Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat announced his team for the Four-Nations tournament set to take place in Mauritius later this month, he included four debutants into his 30-man provisional squad.
Among those four potential debutants was Kenya Police’s Charles Ouma. Anyone with a keen interest in Kenyan football, especially the law enforcers’ matches, would agree that the call up was well and truly deserved.
However, the journey to receiving that very first call up has not been easy for the talented youngster, who has had to overcome adversity to make the plane to Mauritius, where Harambee Stars will also be facing Djibouti and Pakistan.
The journey started with a bold call to then AFC Leopards youth coach Boniface Ambani in 2017, asking for an opportunity to join the team.
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“I have a friend who used to play for the AFC Under-20 team,” Ouma said. "We used to play together in Taita as kids, but he moved to Nairobi to play for Leopards,” he added.
“He went and spoke to the coach (Boniface Ambani) and asked him if he would a look at me. Ambani called me and we had a chat on the phone and he said he would have a look at me. If I impressed him, I would sign for the club.
“So, I traveled to Nairobi a week before training commenced. I stayed there for a week, before Ambani called me and told me that training was yet to commence, so I had to go back home to Taita for about two weeks or something.
“However, after two weeks, they gave me the opportunity to train, and I passed my trials before I started playing with the cubs for two years.”
Ouma played with the AFC Leopards Cubs for two years, the second in which he was named the youth league player of the season.
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“I was named player of the season in the second year. After that, I graduated to play with the first team. I was not signed with the seniors, so I continued playing with the youth until 2020.”
The rejection from playing with the first team was the first of a series of rejections for the young midfielder’s career. Frustrated about a lack of opportunities, he consulted Ambani for help.
“Boniface came to me with an offer to move to Sindo United, which perplexed me in all honesty because I wondered ‘I am I leaving Nairobi to go to the village!?”
Sindo United are a Suba-based club that were playing in the National First Division One at the time Ouma left to join them, but he never really wanted to sign for the club due to geographical and reputation reasons.
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The club did not take him to heart and wanted him out after a couple of months.
“It was challenging to a Sindo as well because they wanted me out, and that is Division One, can you imagine!?”
Ouma had to lean on a friend for a second time in his career to help find him an opportunity to kickstart his career, after his dream was crushed even before it had started.
"I had a friend working for KCB bank, however, who recommended me to go train with the bankers, but things were not plain sailing there either," he remembers.
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Ouma was beginning to feel worthless at this point, but luckily enough, Kenya Police, his current employers, came to him with an offer.
“Police came with an opportunity that I could not turn down in 2021. Thankfully, we managed to ascend to the top flight, and the rest as they say is history," Ouma said of the turning point in his career.
Although the law enforcers were the first club to make him feel like home for the first time in his career, Ouma has had to overcome the challenge of senior and established players being signed into the team and threatening to take his place.
One of the seniors was Patillah Omotto, who signed from Kariobangi Sharks and was a mainstay in the side, until he suffered an injury which saw coach Francis Baraza return him to the starting line up, and he has not looked back since.
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“Our team has lots of seniors, if you come with a base attitude, you will not make it. I just kept working hard and kept my head down, and impressed the coach.”
The towering midfielder has spoken about how difficult it was to convince his family that football was the sport for him to pursue. Now as he is part of the squad and preparing in camp before the side jets out of the country on Monday, he is pleased to have proven his family wrong.
“I am very happy because my family did not want me to play football completely. I just never listened to them because I wanted to badly make it as a footballer. I am grateful to the Almighty because, where I come from, footballers are not produced. Now, I am an example to the kids coming through in Taveta,” he said.
“My hard work brought me here. Like I said, Taveta is not a place where footballers are produced. Now when I go home, people can see that you can go far in football.”
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