Kenya’s national football team is now keen on laying a solid platform for the forthcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
This follows a failed campaign to make it to the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals scheduled for Cameroon.
The side will play five matches this month —- three friendly fixtures and two AFCON qualifiers.
Head coach Jacob Mulee says it gives the coaching staff a good opportunity to test the depth of local talent.
Having made the Egypt 2019 AFCON finals, Kenya’s hopes of featuring at the Cameroon tournament that was pushed forward by a year to 2022 due to the global pandemic, are effectively over.
The Harambee Stars are lying third in Group G on three points.
Mulee hinted at giving locally-based players a good run in the busy month, with the squad starting their second week of training camp in Nairobi.
“Friendlies are welcome. We will be able to really gauge how the local boys are going to play and where the league is in terms of competitiveness.
“We will see whether we can take it to an international level,” Mulee said.
“Those three friendlies are very important for us and I believe that if what I have been seeing in the league is everything to go by, then that is a very good measure for the national team,” the coach who led Kenya to the Tunisia 2004 AFCON finals remarked.
Record AFCON champions Egypt lead surprise package Comoros Islands on goal difference with both tied atop of Group G on eight points apiece.
Togo are trailing the pool with a single point.
Kenya will face South Sudan on March 13 in the first friendly, before hosting Tanzania in back-to-back matches on March 15 and March 18.
They will also host African giants Egypt on March 22 before travelling to Togo on March 30 to round off their 2021 AFCON qualifiers.
Mulee will be using the matches to prepare for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers that get underway in June.(NAN)