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Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat has slammed the decision to have Kenya play CHAN 2024 qualifiers when the country has already sealed their place by virtue of being co-hosts.
Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat has questioned why Kenya are featuring in the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN) qualifiers yet they have already qualified.
Kenya will co-host the tournament, which is reserved for players featuring in African leagues, alongside Tanzania and Uganda, but Harambee Stars are playing the qualifiers of which they started with a 2-0 loss away to South Sudan on Sunday.
Firat, who quickly put together his team ahead of the trip to Sudan, feels it is a waste of effort to feature in a match that has nothing to gain and believes it is one of the reasons for their loss to South Sudan since his players might have approached it casually.
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18:28 - 27.10.2024
Harambee Stars stunned by South Sudan in CHAN 2024 first round qualifiers
Kenya suffered a 2-0 loss to South Sudan in their first round match of the 2024 CHAN qualifiers.
“It does not make sense for me especially if you know these are professional players who are used to playing for something but now, they have nothing to play for,” Firat said after the match.
“This is not something little, it is the most important thing in sport, to have something to play [for] and if you are a normal person, it affects you mentally.
“You know you have a match at the weekend so you don’t want to get injured so everything affects you. Therefore, these kinds of matches do not make sense for me. I cannot say the players benefited, how? I do not understand.”
Harambee Stars went down courtesy of second half goals from Ezibon Malish and Yohanna Paulino and Firat feels his team would have got a positive result had they utilised their chances.
The Kenyan squad had a number of experienced players such as Bryne Omondi, Geoffrey Ochieng and Ronney Onyango, Austin Odhiambo, Sydney Lokale, Daniel Sakari and Musa Mohammed but still could not subdue the South Sudanese.
Harambee Stars will face South Sudan again in the return leg in Uganda on Sunday November 3 with the winner of the two-legged tie set to take on either Rwanda or Djibouti in the final qualification round.
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21:49 - 27.10.2024
Michael Olunga maintains hot scoring streak for table-topping Al Duhail
Harambee Stars captain Michael Olunga’s good form for his club continued on Sunday when he found the target in a fourth game in a row for his table topping Al Duhail.
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