Kenya’s qualification for 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) Under-20 tournament was the only bright spot in a year of disappointment for local men’s football teams.
Nicknamed ‘Rising Stars’, Kenya Under-20 men’s team coached by Salim Babu qualified for the biennial African youth football tournament for the very first time by finishing second in the Cecafa Under-20 regional qualifiers held in Dar es Salaam in October.
Home team Tanzania also qualified for 2025 Afcon Under-20 tournament following a 2-1 victory over Kenya in a tough final played at Kinondoni Municipal Council on October 20.
The Rising Stars will be making their maiden appearance in the continental showpiece which will take place in Cote d’Ivoire from April 26 to May 18. With the 2025 Afcon Under-20 tournament also serving as the African qualifiers for the 2025 Fifa Under-20 World Cup in Chile, the government has assured the team of adequate support.
“We will support you in preparations for 2025 Afcon Under-20 tournament. We have been requested that you go for a camp outside the country, and we will support that. We have also been requested that we get you friendly matches with more competitive teams, and we will also support the same,” Kipchumba Murkomen who was Sports Cabinet Secretary until December 19, said when he hosted the team for breakfast on October 22.
Speaking at the same event, coach Babu exuded confidence that the team would achieve remarkable success in the competition, provided they receive high-level training and exposure.
“If we can prepare in Europe or in West Africa, I mean in countries ranked above Kenya in football then we will make Kenyans proud,” Babu said.
Rising Stars were unbeaten on their way to the final of the Cecafa Under-20 regional qualifiers. After defeating Tanzania 2-1 in their opening Group “A” match, Kenya drew 0-0 with Rwanda and later hammered Djibouti 4-0. They defeated Sudan in the quarter-finals, and Burundi in the semi-finals by a similar margin. Goalkeeper Ibrahim Wanzala won the Golden Gloves Award for keeping four clean sheets while Kenyan forwards Aldrine Kibet and Kevin Wangaya shone with four goals each.
For senior men’s national team Harambee Stars, it was heartbreak, as the team failed to qualify for the 2025 Afcon, which will be staged in Morocco.
Playing in Group “J” alongside five-time champions Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, Kenya finished a disappointing third with six points. Cameroon and Zimbabwe took the top two spots with 14 and nine points respectively to qualify for 2025 Afcon. Namibia finished bottom of the group with two points.
Kenya managed just one win out of their six matches it played, a 2-1 away victory over Namibia. Harambee Stars lost 4-1 and 1-0 to Cameroon and were held by Zimbabwe 0-0 and 1-1. They ended their campaign with a barren draw at home against Namibia.
In addition to Harambee Stars being forced to play all their home matches away, since Kenya lacks a stadium that meets the required standards set by both Fifa and Caf to host an international match, fans blamed the team’s failure to qualify for the 2025 Afcon on coach Engin Firat’s tactics and player selection. The 54-year-old Turkish coach has since quit his role as Harambee Stars coach due to salary arrears.
Kenya hosted Zimbabwe and Cameroon at Mandela National Stadium in Kampala, Uganda, before welcoming Namibia at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, Limpopo Province in South Africa.
While former Harambee Stars captains Musa Otieno and James Situma believe lack of home support cost Kenya the Afcon ticket, other football stakeholders have expressed different opinions.
“Did we give our boys a chance to fight for themselves? I don’t think so because we played all our home matches away,” said Otieno.
Situma, who is chairman of Kenya Footballers Welfare Association, said: “As a former footballer, I know the importance of playing at home in a packed stadium in front of your family and friends. Playing home matches away was a tall order for the players.”
Kenya Football Coaches Association Secretary General Bob Oyugi argues that since several teams, including Zimbabwe, also hosted their home matches in other countries but still qualified for 2025 Afcon, lack of home support cannot be solely blamed for Kenya’s poor campaign.
“Home support is very crucial in football. But what do you make of the teams like Zimbabwe that also played in other countries but still qualified?” the coach instructor posed. Since Harambee Stars hosted their home matches in Uganda and in South Africa, they cumulatively coved 17,930 kilometres in air travel in the entire campaign and spent over Sh100 million.
FKF’s interim Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Korir, told Nation Sport that Kenya spent about Sh21 million to prepare and play one away home fixture. During the 2025 Afcon qualifier campaign, Firat faced constant criticism from Kenyan fans over his match tactics and player selection.
A case in point was in Kenya’s barren draw with Zimbabwe on September 6 in Kampala, where the coach opted not to field a natural striker until too late in the second half of the match when he introduced John Avire.
In Kenya’s away match against Cameroon on October 11, Firat shocked many by resting in-form goalkeeper Bryne Odhiambo for the experienced Patrick Matasi. Matasi went on to make several errors, contributing to Kenya’s 4-1 humiliation.
“We did not have a predator. It is Firat’s tactics and I don’t want to discuss that in detail. From what I saw, I don’t think we were going to score a goal at any given point in the match. We did not have teeth to bite in front of goal and that was our major undoing,” former Harambee Stars coach Jacob “Ghost” Mulee said after Kenya drew 0-0 with Zimbabwe.
“He (Firat) doesn’t know about reading the game and changing accordingly. He does not know how to field players, he keeps gambling,” Oyugi told Nation Sport. In his defence of Kenya’s disappointing campaign in 2025 Afcon qualifiers, Firat pointed to several challenges facing Kenyan football, including lack of proper training and playing facilities, lack of support from the both government and the public, and a weak domestic league, which he argued results in shortage of quality players for the national team.
Under Firat, Harambee Stars were eliminated from the qualifiers of the delayed 2024 Africa Nations Championship (Chan) after losing 3-1 on aggregate to South Sudan’s Bright Stars in the first round of the qualifiers.
Thanks to Harambee Stars’ elimination from the 2024 CHAN qualifiers, their only hope of featuring in the competition reserved for domestic players rests on Kenya retaining the rights to co-host the competition alongside Uganda and Tanzania.
The tournament has been scheduled for February 1 to 28 next.
Firat said that it made no sense for Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to take part in CHAN qualifiers, yet all the three countries had qualified to play in the tournament by virtue of being hosts. In their 2026 Fifa World Cup Group “F” qualifiers, Kenya drew 1-1 with visitors Burundi at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe on June 7.
Three days later, Harambee Stars drew 0-0 with reigning African champions Cote d’Ivoire at the same venue. After playing four matches, Kenya are placed fourth in the pool with five points. Cote d’Ivoire tops with 10 points ahead of Gabon who have garnered a point less while Burundi are third with seven points.
Gambia and Seychelles are fifth and sixth with three and zero points respectively. In November 2023, visitors Kenya lost 2-1 to Gabon, before hammering hosts Seychelles 5-0. The 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers resume in March next year, with Kenya visiting Gambia.
At the end of the qualifiers, the nine group winners will qualify directly for the 2026 Fifa World Cup while the four best group runners-up will compete in the inter-confederation play-offs for the final slot.
Perhaps the only bright spot for Harambee Stars in 2024 was the team’s triumph in a four-national friendly tournament in Malawi in March. Captain Michael Olunga scored a hat-trick as Kenya defeated Zimbabwe 3-1 in the final of the tournament.
Kenya had hammered Malawi 4-0 in their opening match of the tournament which also featured Zambia and hosts Malawi. Last week, Kenya Under-17 men’s football team christened Junior Stars were eliminated from the 2025 Under-17 Afcon-Cecafa qualifiers after losing 1-0 and 5-0 to Tanzania and Uganda respectively. Babu guided Kenya in the matches played at Nakivubo Hamz Stadium in Uganda.
