Firat: Kenya have 'little chance' of making 2026 Fifa World Cup

Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat has admitted his charges face a herculean task in their bid to qualify for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

Harambee Stars are in Group F of the qualifiers alongside African giants Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon Burundi, Seychelles and Gambia.

No Kenyan football team of any age group category or gender has ever qualified for a World Cup.

The World Cup qualifiers, whose draw was done on Thursday in Cote d'Ivoire, will kick off between November 13-21 and end on  November 10-18 in 2025 when the play-offs will be squared out.

Firat told Nation Sport that he is alive to the fact that Kenya are not favourites to qualify but he believes they can give a good account of themselves in the qualifiers.

"I think it is an open group and will be decided on details and well organisation more so for us if we sort out our financial problems," said Firat.

According to the latest Fifa rankings, only Cote d'Ivoire (51) and Gabon (85) are ranked above Kenya in the group.

Kenya is ranked at position 105, Seychelles (196), Gambia (119) and Burundi at position (140).

Ivory Coast won the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 1992 and 2015 while Gabon reached Afcon quarters finals in 1996 and 2012.

In the previous World Cup qualifiers, Kenya failed to go past the second round. The same script has been in Afcon where Kenya has participated six times.

In the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, Harambee Stars only registered one win against Rwanda in Group E which also had Mali and Uganda.

In 2018, World Cup Qualifiers Kenya advanced to the second round after defeating Mauritius but was eliminated by Cape Verde.

It was the same story in the 2006, 2010 and 2014 World Cups where Kenya failed to go past the second round of the qualifiers.

Firat, 54, added: "We are not favourites as some people are trying to say but our aim is to make history. We shall try our best but there is no guarantee. We will just do our best even if our chances are not so high."

"We had 15 local players in our last friendly. I have given Timothy Ouma, 17, and Moses Shumah, 19 chances in my tenure. There is no difference between local and foreign players and now on we have to focus on official matches and the number of new players will go down," said Firat.

Former Harambee Stars coach Francis Kimanzi agrees with Firat that Kenya has an uphill task in the 2026  World Cup qualifiers.

"There is no weak team in football so those saying the draw is favourable to us are just judgemental and basing their argument on the past," said Kimanzi, 47.

"Even in the past qualifiers in Afcon we met Comoros Island which was a lowly ranked team but they beat us," he added. "Every team is no pushover. Even Seychelles have really improved while Burundi have always troubled us here even in Cecafa. So we just have to prepare well but that is the job of the current coach and his players," he added.

Africa will have at least nine representatives in the 2026 Fifa World Cup, up from the traditional five.

Teams in the nine groups will play in a home and away, round-robin, format with each of the group winners qualifying automatically for the 48-team Fifa World Cup.

The four best group runners-up will then compete in a play-off stage to determine Caf’s representative at the Fifa play-off tournament. The Fifa play-off tournament will feature one team from each of Fifa's six confederations, except Uefa, plus one additional team from the host confederation (Concacaf)," the rules for the qualifiers state.

Two of the six teams will be seeded based on the Fifa/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The seeded teams will play for a Fifa World Cup berth against the winners of the first two knockout games involving the four unseeded teams.