Kenya U-20 side quietly fly out to face Botswana

What you need to know:

  • Preliminary round, first leg match to be played in capital city, Gaborone.

Kenye will on Friday face Botswana in a preliminary round, first leg of the 2018 Fifa Under-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers in Gaborone.

This will be the first competitive engagement that the Kenya Under-20 women’s team is engaging in since 2012 when they participated in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

The newly assembled side that is mainly made up of high school students and handled by little known Caroline Achieng’, quietly flew out of Nairobi yesterday morning for the Botswana capital.

PART OF SET UP

Having been part of the Harambee Starlets squad that competed at last year’s Cecafa Women Championship in Uganda and the Africa Women Nations Cup qualifiers, custodian Lillian Owuor and Corazone Aquino, are the most experienced players in the team.

Consequently, Owuor is highly tipped to start between the posts against the southern Africans with Aquino detailed to conduct proceedings from the centre of the field.

Other players in the squad, which has been camping in Machakos for the past fortnight, include striking duo Martha Amunyolete and Jentrix Shikangwa, both products of the famed Wiyeta Girls High School, plus Ibinzo Girls prodigy Cynthia Shilwatso and Thika Queens defender Vivian Naskaha.

The aggregate winner of this tie will face Ethiopia in the first round in September.

Winner of the round will have to negotiate two other two-legged knock-out stages for a right to play at next year’s World Cup in France.

The Under-20 team posted a comfortable win against Zambia in the preliminaries of the 2-14 qualifiers.

Then coached by Florence Achieng’ the side’s promising start ended prematurely when the federation could not raise money for them to face Morocco in the next round forcing them out of the competition.