Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday? Try being in the stadium when Kenya beat Morocco...

But I think I found something that beats a Jet2 Holiday yesterday, Sunday, August 10, 2025, and boy, oh boy, that beating is bigger than all the beatings you have ever experienced in your life.

When Ryan Ogam pulled the trigger with his left leg and sent that ball into the back of the net, you just had to be there, you had to be at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani. We had beaten not just the goalkeeper but the naysayers; we had beaten years of neglect, hopelessness, despair. We had beaten doubt, but most importantly, we had beaten the Atlas Lions of Morocco.

It was a moment in lore. Kenya’s lore. CHAN lore. Soccer lore. It was the kind of moment that minstrels from days past would be summoned to write and sing songs, recite poems of brave kings going into lands beyond the borders and coming back heroic.

Harambee Stars had been given a snowball’s chance in hell to even win one game in their Group 'A’ match of the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN). But the Stars listened and said as long as the snowball had a chance in pits of hell, they would take it and freeze hell over.

The first chance was against DRC Congo, where we dealt with them so easily that it felt like we were dancing Lingala at 3am on a cool Saturday night.

Our boys left the Congolese players dazed like they had just done a full night dancing Kwassa Kwasaa and Dombolo after imbibing ten warm Primus bottles.

Angola was next, and they tried to pass one past us in the dying minutes, but VAR shook its head and we settled for a draw.

The Stars were to face their greatest threat yet in Morocco. The Atlas Lions are a football powerhouse by all measures, and we last beat them in 1995 in Nairobi.

That was a bloody 30 years ago. It still feels strange saying 1995 was 30 years ago until you realise there is a whole generation born after, that is now giving our president a headache and has probably made him lose a few kilos.

But the Stars and their snowball’s chance in hell welcome the match up, and that is where Ryan Ogam comes in to beat the Jet2 Holiday like it stole from him.

Sunday afternoon, the weather is warmer than usual, and thousands of Kenyans have shown up, with tickets and many without, to support the stars.

The atmosphere is heavy with expectations, and everyone is jovial. Confident. If there was even a doubt in our boys, nobody showed it; we were here for Harambee Stars. More importantly, we were here for Kenya.

The moment turned Bien's latest song "All my enemies are suffering" into a national anthem, I swear I saw some people place their hands on their hearts and close their eyes whenever the chorus came on. The Moroccan players were the enemy, and they needed to suffer defeat. I am sure it is somewhere in the Constitution.

The feeling of patriotism in the stadium was like no other. It has been a very long time since I had that feeling. When I looked around and saw the country we should be, the country we were meant to be.

This was more than soccer, this was about people with the same dreams, hopes and fears all coming together, forgetting about the damn clowns we call politicians and their stupid taglines.

That feeling, I felt it when I saw my son waving his flag and booing Morocco, not because of anything, but he did not like that they were here, hoping to beat Kenya. How dare they? Not on his watch. He would wave his little flag vigorously until his team, his country, won.

He probably knows Morocco from history when he was taught that Ibn Battuta, the explorer and scholar, was born there, but here he was booing some random kid whenever he touched the ball. Patriotism at its finest.

The stadium was full of people who were here not just for Kenya but for Africa, bringing up that unfortunate statement by Sofiane Boufal, who, during the World Cup, said that a Morocco win would have been great for the Arab world, a statement that many interpreted to mean they do not see themselves as Africans.

Boufal did apologise for his statement, but that will never go away, and it was evident here with some calling them the “deputy Europeans.” Good banter.

The stadium was tense, but the Mexican waves, the Poznań party celebrations and chants of “1 million” kept the jitters at bay as they waited for that moment.

The moment came in the 42nd minute when Ogam drilled a low shot, and the scoreboard read 1-0.

It was magical, ethereal, deafening, dizzying. We all saw it happen, slow at first, when the ball bounced off the Moroccan defender, then very fast, when Ogam picked it up and twisted his frame and gave the Lions an Atlas to find their way back home.

The second half was a nightmare for Kenyans who wanted the clock to move faster, but every second felt like a minute.

After the clock in the stadium stopped at 90 minutes, it was guesswork on when the 7 minutes added time would lapse, and at some point, everyone felt like the referee forgot to check his watch and blow the final whistle.

Seven minutes have never felt so long, especially when the desperate Moroccans started throwing missiles into the box but met our own Iron Dome by the name of Byrne Omondi, the goalkeeper.

Then the whistle came and the hugs, cheers filled the stadium and everyone. It had finally happened, the snowball had taken its chances and was now turning “hell” into a freezer.

Leaving the stadium felt like you were getting out of a portal and back to real life. Everyone in there, rich or poor, had forgotten about their “normal” lives for 97 minutes, willed the team to a historic win, and now we were leaving this magical portal but richer with memories and belief in self. Harambee Stars might be Ksh.2.5 million richer, but this is, was, not about money.

So, Jet 2, you can ride into the sunset now, we know what can beat your holiday.