•The players were largely selected from a pool identified by scouts deployed by the Ministry of Sports at the 2023 Talanta Hela Under-19 football tournament that concluded in December.
•The final selection followed an intensive one-week special training camp at the Moi Stadium, Kasarani in Nairobi.
Image: HANDOUT
Plans are at an advanced stage to fly the Kenya Under-20 boys and girls national teams to Tarragona in Spain, where they will participate in an invitational tournament in March this year.
Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba said the move is part of a robust partnership between the Sports Ministry and the Spanish Nastic Soccer Academy.
Namwamba further said the trip will afford the Kenyan teams a perfect platform to sharpen their talons as they prepare for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers later in the year.
“As part of preparations, the junior teams will travel to Spain in the spring of 2024 for elite training and the MIC Football Invitational competition,” Namwamba remarked.
“In 2023, we won the rights to co-host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON’27), for which we are preparing seriously by identifying talents to feed a future formidable Harambee Stars while we upgrade the sports infrastructure that has been in limbo for decades,” he added.
The players were largely selected from a pool identified by scouts deployed by the Ministry of Sports at the 2023 Talanta Hela Under-19 football tournament that concluded in December. The final selection followed an intensive one-week special training camp at the Moi Stadium, Kasarani in Nairobi.
Namwamba said there have been deliberate and sustained efforts to nurture a potent team that will fly the country’s flag in major competitions in the future.
He revealed that the government pumped a whopping Sh267 million into the school games, music, drama, and film festivals.
“The climax was the secondary school football extravaganza at Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega County, where the final game between St. Anthony School and Dagoreti Boys was watched by a mammoth crowd of unprecedented proportions and also beamed live on KBC Channel One for the first time in history,” Namwamba remarked.
“2000 of the best talents from the school, games were selected for a historic National Holiday Talent Camp hosted by the Kenya Academy of Sports (KAS), where they were trained, scouted and mentored by some of Kenya’s sporting greats like Musa Otieno, Wilberforce Mulamba, and Doreen Nabwire,” he added.
It is this camp that fed the Talanta Hela U19 Inter-county tournament that climaxed on Jamhuri Day, with Busia County winning the girls' trophy and Homabay clinching the boy’s title.
“The same camp also inspired the exciting Kenya U18 boys’ team (Junior Stars) that lit up the Cecafa Junior tournament in Kisumu and Kakamega.
“Indeed, the genius Talanta Hela Tournament has given birth to Kenya U17 and U20 national junior teams for boys and girls, which are being prepared for Fifa U17 and U20 World Cup qualifiers starting 2024,” Namwamba stated.
“This deliberate pipeline is already churning out exciting fresh talents like Amos Wanjala, Aldrine Kibet, Tyrone Kariuki, Barone Ochieng, Luis Ingavi and Vallery Nekesa and has got Kenyans believing that indeed our country’s football has a bright future.”