Kenya’s Junior Starlets confident of back to back World Cup qualification
Kenya will start its journey towards qualifying for back-to-back FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup competitions, when they take on neighbours Uganda in the second round of the CAF qualifiers this weekend. The Kenyan side was one of the three African teams to compete at last year’s showpiece in the Dominican Republic.
This was the first time ever that a Kenyan team, male or female across all age categories, was playing at a World Cup. And now, with the 2026 competition set for African soil in Morocco, head coach Mildred Cheche and her charges are optimistic of qualification.
“We tasted that bit of action and we now know what it feels like to play at a World Cup. That feeling has ignited more hunger in us and the girls want to go back there. We have new players who have been called up and they also want to taste the feeling. That combined effort is what is driving and pushing us towards qualification,” coach Cheche told CAFOnline.
The tactician says they are not taking anything for granted despite the pedigree of last year’s qualification, and with more expectation now on their shoulder, says they have to take everything seriously.
“I look at it as motivation, knowing that people expect a lot from us. It is not pressure on our end. We have prepared well over the last two weeks and we have worked on every little detail. We know we face a tough Uganda side and our aim is to take the best result from the away leg,” added the coach.
Heading to Uganda, the coach has a huge chunk of the players who featured at the World Cup still eligible for qualification for 2026. Last year’s captain Elizabeth Ochaka leads the legion of World Cup debutantes who are in the team.
However, coach Cheche has switched leadership roles within the team, and has tasked Halima Imbachi, who was also at the World Cup, to skipper the team in this campaign.
“It is such a huge honour to be given this role as captain and it means the team trusts me,” Imbachi told CAFOnline.
She added; “My job is to guide the team, especially the new players as we head to Uganda to ensure that we start with a win. There is a lot of confidence within the team and we want to go and do our best.”
The winner in the second round duel between Kenya and Uganda will meet the winner between Ethiopia and Cameroon, for one of three available African tickets to play at the World Cup next year.