Junior Stars Coach Highlights Pre-Tournament Blunders That Cost Kenya AFCON U17 Ticket

Kenya U17 coach William Muluya has admitted that their scattergun approach to things before the CECAFA U17 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers contributed to their poor showing.

Junior Stars missed a ticket to next year’s U17 AFCON after losing the third-place playoff to Ethiopia, who thrashed them 3-0 on Tuesday, in what was their final chance at making it to the tournament.

It has been a steep learning curve for Muluya’s boys as they were no match for eventual winners Tanzania in the semi-final, losing 3-1, having beaten South Sudan and Rwanda before drawing with Somalia at the group stages.

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Having quickly assembled a team and trained for just a week before heading to Ethiopia for the regional tournament, Muluya says they set themselves up to fail, pointing to the well-structed and detailed preparations of some of their rivals as enough proof that there are no shortcuts to success.

“From my experience with Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, if you look closely at Tanzania and Uganda, these are teams that have been together for not less than a year,” said Muluya, in reference to the three teams that made it to the U17 AFCON.

“Ethiopia have been in camp for at least three months. All the teams that qualified for AFCON prepared early. Good player selection and early, consistent preparation have been key.

“If we can get it right by selecting players as early as now and bringing them together, ensuring they play competitively like Tanzania’s youngsters who feature in a strong under-20 league supported by two solid centres of excellence, then I believe we will be on the right track,” the Kariobangi Sharks tactician further said on what Kenya needs to do.

Ethiopia joined Uganda and Tanzania, the finalists, in qualifying for U17 AFCON while Kenya will have to go back to the drawing board and hope to come back stronger in the next qualifiers in December 2026.