Why Harambee Stars Must Work Harder to Proceed Past Group Stages

Talk of the African Cup of Nation. To Kenya, it is by far the greatest milestone we’ve achieved in a span of more than a decade.

Kenya has qualified for Africa’s elite competition since 2004, which is why we value this coming tournament and a lot is expected from our stars.

Of course, it will not be a walk in the park as the tournament involves several teams that have been gracing the competition regularly like Egypt (hosts), Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon among others.

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This, therefore, calls for support and motivation to our Harambee Stars squad to work harder and reward the nation with the trophy at least for the first time since the tournament began in 1957.

Kenya is in group C together with Algeria, Tanzania, and Senegal. This is arguably one of the toughest groups in the tournament this year.

Why?

Algeria

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Algeria have appeared in the finals of the Africa Cup of Nations on fifteen occasions. The first participation was in 1968 in Ethiopia. Algeria won the cup in one time when it hosts the tournament in 1990. It finished second in 1980 in Nigeria and third in 1984 in Côte d’Ivoire and in 1988 in Morocco.

Currently, Algeria are led by Manchester City’s left-footed dazzler Riyard Mahrez.

Senegal

Senegal have been regular competitors in the Africa Cup of Nations, where their best performance was runner-up to Cameroon in the 2002 edition in Mali.

In the same year, Senegal took part at the FIFA World Cup for the first time and reached the quarter-finals, having defeated reigning champions France in the opening game. The team made their second World Cup appearance 16 years later, earning four points, being eliminated in the group stage against Japan based on fair play points.

Tanzania

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On March 24th, 2019, Tanzania thumped East African rivals Uganda 3-0 to reach the finals of Africa cup of nations for the first time in 39 years which prompted Tanzanian president John Magufuli to gift the national team players with parcels of land as a token for qualifying to the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.

Recently, Tanzania has invested more money in the team in hope of improvement. Tanzania has beaten Burkina Faso twice in the African Cup of Nations qualifiers and beat Cameroon 1–0 in a friendly match. The most recent achievement was a 1−0 win against South Africa in the 2017 COSAFA Cup Quarter-finals.

With this motivation, Tanzania will be a team to beat in the tournament and especially in group C.

What next for Kenya?

A lot of hard work will be needed for Kenya to proceed past the group stages.

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We equally have a formidable squad consisting of renown players like Victor Wanyama who plays for Manchester City and Ismael Gonzales who plays for Las Palmas, Spain.

We also cannot write off Philemon Otieno and Francis Kahata who plays for Gor Mahia. The two players alongside their current club teammates have toured Enugu State in Nigeria, Blantyre in Malawi, Malabo in Equatorial Guinea, Pretoria in South Africa, Tunis in Tunisia, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Kigali in Rwanda, Douala in Cameroon, Luanda in Angola, Algiers in Algeria and Cairo in Egypt, all these in their continental campaign in both Caf Confederation Cup and Caf Champions League.

The two K’Ogalo players, Kahata and Philemon apparently gained enough experience during these trips and could be the best stars to steer Harambee Stars to victory.

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It will be a tight campaign for the Harambee Stars but they seem to acknowledge that. In fact, the team is set to go to Paris, France for preparation.

Harambee Stars are set to begin their campaign in June 23rd at exactly midnight against Algeria in their opening match of this year’s AFCON tournament.

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