Kenya national team coach Benni McCarthy says success for his side at the next edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) will be getting out of the group.
The 2027 edition will be hosted in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with the preliminary round of qualifiers for the event scheduled to start this week. 12 lower ranked sides on the continent will start battle for six available spots for the group stage qualifiers.
Meanwhile, the last time Harambee Stars qualified for the continental showpiece was at the 2019 finals in Egypt where they didn’t get out of the group.
McCarthy told iDiski Times senior journalist Matshelane Mamabolo in edition 248 that his side is aiming for the knockout phase on home soil and will try to stay as long as they can in the tournament after that.
“Getting out of the group stages, first of all, that’s the biggest worry,” McCarthy told iDiski Times.
“You know, you don’t want to be the host, and then you collapse in the group stages. So that’s disastrous for the tournament, especially because then you get less fans wanting to come to the game because their nation is out.
“But if the nation is still in the tournament, then even if you don’t have tickets to go to your nation, you would want to go and see other teams. But if you’re not there, then I don’t want to go and watch.
“So, for me, I think success would be getting out of the group stages, and then you take it game by game and see where you can get to.
“Because when you watched AFCON, the latest AFCON in Morocco, the standard was incredible. The standard was high. The quality of pitches also allowed the football to go up a level as well.
“So yeah, that’s a tough task for us to do. But we’ll do the best we can and most definitely target getting out of the group stages.”
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