)
The Turkish tactician feels Kenya ‘are not favourites’ as they will have it rough in their qualification journey
Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat has poured cold water on sentiments that Kenya can easily navigate their group and qualify for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Kenya were pooled in Group F alongside the Ivory Coast, Gabon, The Gambia, Burundi and Seychelles in Thursday’s draw with only the group leaders set to qualify for the global tournament in North America.
While the Ivory Coast (51) and Gabon (85) are the only teams ranked higher that Kenya (105) in the group, Harambee Stars’ standards having been going down and hit a low last month when they lost to Mauritius in the Four-Nations tournament.
It is on the backdrop that Firat feels Kenya have an uphill task, especially if they do not put in great preparations.
“We are not favourites as some people are trying to say but we aim to make history,” Firat told Nation.
“We shall try our best but there is no guarantee. We will do our best. We will just do our best even if our chances are not high.
“We had 15 local players in our last friendly. I have given Timothy Ouma, 17, and Moses Shumah, 19, chances in my tenure. There is no difference between local and foreign players and now we have to focus on official matches and the number of new players will go down.”
Kenya have failed to get past the second round in their qualifying campaign for the last five World Cup editions.
In the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, Harambee Stars could only manage one win, against Rwanda, from their group that included Mali and Uganda.
Mali topped the group and went on to the World Cup playoffs where they lost to Tunisia who clinched one of the five African tickets to Qatar.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)