Good luck to Harambee Stars in Cup qualifiers

By Bismarck Mutahi

The draw for the 2010 World Cup/ Africa Cup of Nations is out and the question on everyone’s lips is: Will Kenya prevail over the seemingly tough opponents?

I am also one of those asking if Kenya can make it to Angola in 2010 for the Nations Cup leave alone the World Cup in South Africa the same year.

It is one of the toughest draws Harambee Stars could ever have asked for. The work is cut out for Francis Kimanzi or whoever will lead us through the qualifiers.

For the benefit of those who might have forgotten we were pooled against two teams that have been to the World Cup before — Nigeria and Tunisia alongside Mozambique in Group B.

When the draw came out on Wednesday, a colleague joked the only good thing about it was there were direct flights to Maputo and Lagos from Nairobi.

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Maybe my colleague was running away from the Herculean task facing Stars in the qualifiers or he was just being realistic and accepting that it would be a tough task for our boys.

For us to make it to the World Cup it means we have to start winning away and that will be against tough opposition in the case of Nigeria and Tunisia.

I was impressed with the optimism of Stars captain Robert Mambo who predicted after the draw we would be playing in the World Cup in South Africa.

That is the way to go Mambo as we should not fear anybody if we want to play with the best in the world.

But in as much as I support Mambo’s sentiments, I also fear for our team considering the circumstances they have been playing under. And just to be realistic the World Cup is still a step too far for us.

Even though we qualified to where we are it was only by the mercies of God we are gunning for a World Cup ticket without having played a meaningful friendly.

We are already late in preparing for the qualifiers in March and I have not heard any football official talking of a build up match.

Tunisia, who we will be playing first on March 28 or 29 played a friendly against former world champions France in Paris, which they lost 3-1.

It showed they were ready for a shot in the World Cup even before the draw was made but for our case the Kenya Football Federation is telling us preparation will start soon. How soon is soon? As if that is not enough Kimanzi does not yet know if he will be in charge or not and we claim we want to make it to the World Cup?

We need to be realistic about the task ahead of us and stop talking of making it to the World Cup when we have no plans to take us there.

If we are not careful we could even miss out of the Africa Cup of Nations.

Group B prediction: 1. Nigeria 2. Tunisia 3. Kenya 4. Mozambique.