NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 14 – Harambee Stars forward Michael Olunga continued in his rich vein of scoring form, scoring his 16th goal of the season, but couldn’t do much as his Japanese J1 League side Kashiwa Reysol lost 2-1 on the road to Sagan Tosu.
Fresh from being named August’s J1 League player of the month, Olunga broke the deadlock in the 24th minute, firing home from the back post for his 16th goal of the season in 16 matches, stretching away in the golden boot hunt.
However, Reysol who had won three matches on the trot could not hold on to the lead as they conceded a 45th minute penalty slotted home by Daichi Hayashi before Riki Harakawa gave the home side a 2-1 advantage three minutes after the break.
The loss saw Reysol drop to seventh in the league standings with 26 points from 16 matches, a whooping 18 behind league leaders Kawasaki Frontale.
Meanwhile in Canada, national team captain Victor Wanyama clocked the whole game as Montreal Impact beat Vancouver White Caps 4-2 to move fifth in the Major League Soccer Eastern Conference.
Algerian forward Saphir Taider was the star of the show scoring once and assisting twice.
Impact went down early with Thelonius Bair scoring the opener for Vancouver in the seventh minute, but Nigerian Orji Okoronkwo restored parity eight minutes later, finishing off a Taider assist.
The Algerian then doubled Montreal’s advantage at the stroke of halftime from the penalty spot and then turned provider six minutes after the break, laying the ball for Samuel Piette to make it 3-1.
Piette then turned provider to lay up Romell Quioto for the fourth and despite Rudy Camacho turning the ball into his own net in the 66th minute, Impact had done just enough to bag the three points.
In Sweden, both Joseph ‘Crouch’ Okumu (IF Elfsborg) and Erick ‘Marcelo’ Ouma (AIK) were absent as their sides picked up draws against Djugardens and Malmo. Okumu was suspended for the game after accumulating four yellow cards while Ouma is just resuming full training after recovering from a fracture.
Elfsborg remain third in the standings with 33 points while AIK are struggling at 13th.
In the second tier, Eric Johannah was on the pitch for 77 minutes as his club Jonkopings Sodra lost 4-2 away to league leaders Dergerfors. Sodra who saw their two-match winning streak end remained third in the standings with 29 points, eight off the leaders.
In Belgium, Johannah Omollo started and played for an hour as Cercle Brugge lost 2-0 to Vincent Kompany’s Anderlecht.
Lukas Nmecha’s first half penalty and Michael Murillo’s second half strike handed Anderlecht the victory with Brugge dropping to 10th in the standings with six points off the first five matches of the season.
In Finland, goalkeeper Arnold Origi was in goal as HIFK Fotboll came off the positive end of a seven-goal thriller, winning 4-3 away to HIFK in the Helsinki Derby. HIFK came from two goals down after Origi conceded within a space of five minutes early in the game.
Fellow Kenyan, striker Sydney Lokale is still missing from the squad as he is nursing an injury.
In Egypt, former Mathare United midfielder Cliff Nyakeya scored his first goal for FC Masr, notching the opener in their 2-2 draw with Al Ittihad. Nyakeya played 64 minutes of the match.
In neighboring Tanzania, Francis Kahata came off the bench as Simba drew 1-1 with Mtibwa Sugar while Faruk Shikhalo was out for Yanga as they clawed a 1-0 victory over Mbeya City in Dar es Salaam.
Shikhalo missed out with injury despite finally getting the starting role in Yanga’s opening game of the season.