There are all sorts of reasons why football teams lose matches, that are mostly to do with a failure of the coach or the players, but sometimes fans are keen to blame bad omens.
Some Kenyans, reflecting on their nation’s 2-0 defeat to Algeria in their opening Afcon match, think former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is a bad omen. He was in Egypt to watch the match.
Before the game, one Twitter user flagged up the potential problem.
After Sunday’s game people were asking for the president to act. This tweeter said. in both English and Swahili, that he had to do something immediately:
But others have pointed out that Kenyans should focus on the players’ performances first:
Mr Odinga himself did not address the question of his impact. In a post-match tweet he told the team to “keep your heads up and keep going” and goes on to say in Swahili “sliding is not falling”:
