After playing together in the Rwandan national team for eight years, Olivier Karekezi and Jimmy Gatete are arguably the greatest ever striking pair to have emerged from Rwanda and East Africa as a whole.
The duo also left a footprint one of the game’s prolific attackers as they tormented well established defenders who were playing in the world’s famous leagues when they met on national assignment.
Gatete and Karekezi were the main actors in Rwanda’s golden generation as they inspired the country to its first ever AFCON in 2004, under the tutelage of Serbian gaffer Ratomir Dujkovic.
Jimmy Gatete scored the lone goal that stunned Ghana, and powered Rwanda to the 2004 AFCON finals in Tunisia. Photo: File.
In 2003, the pair terrorized a Ghanaian team that had then UEFA Champions League winner Samuel Osei Kuffour of Bayer Munich, the legendary Stephen Appiah, and others, as Rwanda qualified for the AFCON with Gatete scoring a 49th minute header which is still fresh in the minds of both Rwandan and Ghanaian fans who watched the game.
Gatete born on December 11, 1982, in nearby Burundi, played for Mukura Victory Sport in Huye, Southern Province, before being signed by APR. Karekezi on the other hand had started his career with the youth side of APR before being promoted to the senior team in 2002.
Coming from total obscurity to stardom after eliminating Ghana, Gatete and his striking partner, Karekeizi, proceeded to knock out Ghanaian giants Kumasi Asante Kotoko in the quarter-finals of the 2003 Cup Winners Cup through away goal rule with APR.
Both players were immense in the two legs with Karekezi’s goal at the Amahoro Stadium on September 12, 2003, proving to be the sucker punch after the first-leg in Kumasi had ended 2-1 in favor of Asante Kotoko.
Karekezi finished the competition as the top scorer with five goals and Gatete was also in the "all-star” team as their side reached the semi-finals. The feat remains the club’s biggest achievement in African club competitions.
According to available records, the pair netted an impressive 49 goals in combined 97 appearances for Amavubi, and the goal haul is yet to be broken.
Sadly, over a decade after the pair retired, the national team is yet to get back on its feet. A lot must be done to unearth another extremely talented attacking duo to carry the mantle.
Rwanda’s dream of making it to the 2022 World Cup is effectively over after just picking up one point in four matches but they can focus on the 2024 AFCON in Cote D’Ivoire and the 2026 World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by USA, Canada and Mexico.
I will entreat the Rwanda FA to try every possible means to get Noam Emeran, an extraordinary talent who features for Manchester United under-23. He is the son of former Amavubi defender Fritz Emeran Nkusi.
Although he is representing France at Under-19 level, he can still switch allegiance to play for Rwanda.
Together with Lague Byiringiro of APR fame, whose talent is also glaring, they can be the main acts in the next generation of Amavubi players and replicate what Gatete and Karekezi did.
Views expressed in this article are of the writer