Kenya’s Junior Stars will on Friday take on Somalia seeking to top group ‘A’ at the ongoing Cecafa U18 Boys Championships.
Kenya lead the group with six points after 5-0 and 1-0 wins against Sudan and Rwanda respectively. Kenya’s assistant coach Anthony Akhulia said they will not underrate Somalia.
“We didn’t play well in the second match against Rwanda. We want an improved performance. As I said earlier, we take one game at a time,” said Akhulia.
Kenya need a win to top the group while Somalia need a win and hope that Rwanda fall or draw against Sudan to book a slot in the last four. The game will be played at Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega.
Speaking after Kenya’s second win against Rwanda, Kenya’s captain Amos Wanjala said: “We need to continue working hard because there are more matches to come.”
Somali coach Omar Ahmed Mohamed: “We know Kenya are playing good football and have won two matches now. But we shall prepare well because we need to defeat Kenya in our last group match.”
Rwanda will face bottom-of-the-table Sudan in the other last Group ‘A’ game at Jomo Kenyatta International Stadium in Kisumu.
Rwanda coach Baptiste Kayiranga said: “After the loss against Kenya, we need to go back and prepare well for the last group match against Sudan.”
The battle for two semifinal slots in Pool ‘B’ will go down to the wire. All four teams have recorded one win from two games ahead of the last group stage games.
The four teams, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zanzibar, and Uganda have scored the same number of goals and conceded the same number of goals too.
South Sudan take on Uganda at Jomo Kenyatta Stadium in Kisumu in a winner-takes-all encounter on Saturday, while Tanzania face Zanzibar at Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega county.
Sudan coach Mustasim Khalid Omer El Taher blamed the lack of adequate training time for their poor showing at the regional championships.
"We trained for a few days because of the security challenges in our country. But we shall prepare well for our last group match against Rwanda,” he said.
The semi-finals will be played on Tuesday in Kisumu while the third-place play-off and final are set for Friday in Kisumu.
