Kenya in ‘group of death’ for Under-20 Afcon tournament
Kenya Under 20 coach Salim Babu with his players at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on arrival from Tanzania on October 21, 2024.
What you need to know:
- The 13-team biennial youth tournament will be played from April 26 to May 18 in Egypt.
- Kenya, coached by Salim Babu, will be making their second appearance in the tournament.
Kenya has been pooled in a ‘group of death’ in the forthcoming 2025 Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals.
According to the draw conducted on Sunday in Cairo, Kenya will play Nigeria, Tunisia and Morocco in Group ‘B’ of the age-group competition.
The 13-team biennial youth tournament will be played from April 26 to May 18 in Egypt.
Cote d’Ivoire had initially been given the hosting rights, but the West African nation pulled out last month.
Group ‘A’ has home team Egypt, Zambia, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania.
Group ‘C’ has defending champions Senegal, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ghana.
Nigeria is the most successful club in the history of the tournament with seven titles, while Morocco has lifted the trophy once.
In the previous draw of the competition, Kenya Under-20, dubbed ‘Rising Stars’, were placed in a relatively easier Group ‘C’ together with Senegal, Zambia, and Sierra Leone.
Kenya, coached by Salim Babu, will be making their second appearance in the tournament after their debut in 1979 when the tournament was still referred to as African Youth Championship. Kenya’s campaign in that edition of the tournament ended in the preliminary round where they lost 4-2 on aggregate to Ethiopia.
Kenya’s provisional team, which comprises both foreign-based and local talent, has held residential training camp since last month.
They have played a series of build-up matches against Football Kenya Federation Premier League (FKF-PL) clubs, notably securing an emphatic 4-2 win over Ulinzi Stars and identical 1-1 draws against Kariobangi Sharks, and Kenya Police. They lost 3-2 to Tusker and defeated Kenya Police Youth 3-1.
Babu has admitted to facing a selection headache for the tournament but promised to assemble a formidable final squad. He is expected to trim the squad to 24 players. The team is scheduled to hold high-performance training in Morocco before departing for the tournament.
The top four nations in the tournament will qualify for the 2025 Fifa Under-20 World Cup that will be staged in Chile from September 27 to October 19.
Babu is confident that the Rising Stars can make history by securing one of the coveted tickets to the global showpiece.
Kenya booked a historic ticket to Afcon U20 finals by finishing second in the Cecafa U20 regional qualifiers held in October last year in Dar-es-Salaam.
The hosts Tanzania defeated Kenya 2-1in a tough final played at Kinondoni Municipal Council on October 20. The Rising Stars were unbeaten on their way to the final of the Cecafa U20 regional qualifiers.
After defeating Tanzania 2-1 in their opening Group “A” match, Kenya battled to a barren draw with Rwanda and later hammered Djibouti 4-0. They defeated Sudan and Burundi (semi-final) by a similar margin.