Coach Firat confident of a win against Seychelles

By Peter Ochieng

National football team, Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat is confident his charges will collect maximum points against Seychelles on Monday.

Harambee Stars face Seychelles in group F's second game of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, on the backdrop of a 2-1 defeat against hosts Gabon in the first match on Thursday evenning.

Stars took the lead through Juma Masoud's effort in the first half, before the hosts came up tops with two second half goals. Harambee Stars missed the services of Joseph Okumu (Reims, France), Eric ‘Marcelo’ Ouma (AIK, Sweden), and Daniel Anyembe (Viborg, Denmark) among others due to injuries.

Firat attributed the Gabon loss the injuries.

"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,” he said.

He is however confident that his boys will bounce back with a win against minnows Seychelles on Monday. The match will played in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

“We are going to Seychelles to win, there is no question about that. 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,” he said.

“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.”

The Stars squad is already in Abidjan for the Monday encounter with Seychelles. The match will be played at Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium.

Kenya, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Seychelles, Burundi and Gambia make up group F.

Ivory Coast thrashed Seychelles 9-0 in the first match.