Firat: Kenya going to Seychelles to win

Kenya head coach Engin Firat insists his team will have three points in mind when they take on Seychelles at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium on Monday night.

Kick-off is at 9pm CAT (SA, GMT+2)

The Harambee Stars kicked off their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with a 2-1 defeat to Gabon in Franceville on Thursday to leave them fifth in Group F after the opening round of matches.

Firat's side made a bright start against the Panthers and took the lead through Masud Juma in the 40th minute, but their performance dropped off in the second half which saw Denis Bouanga (60') and Guelor Kanga (88') score to complete the turnaround.

The East Africans have registered some surprise results this year, including a 2-1 win over Qatar and a 2-2 draw with Russia, and Firat is determined to bounce back against the Pirates.

"We are going to Seychelles to win, there is no question about that," he said. "We need enough points to proceed to the next level. We need to try as much as we can to collect all the points we can from our matches.

"Considering the number of players who were missing, I cannot blame the boys. It was not our day. The last 10 days we've been very unlucky and being beaten after taking the lead is very disappointing.

"But this doesn't change our mind for the future, so we have to focus on the next match. I hope we shall be having our full squad in our next match. There will be many matches in our group and we'll see what happens once we are through with them."

Seychelles will be smarting after they suffered a heavy 9-0 humiliation at the hands of Ivory Coast in Abidjan on Friday.

The island minnows are expected to be the whipping boys in the group, having won just once in their last 20 games - a 1-0 triumph over Bangladesh on 28 March 2023.

Vivian Bothe's side have proven a difficult nut to crack on occasion after holding San Marino, Lesotho and South Africa to 0-0 draws more recently.