Kenya ‘don’t fear’ Morocco says Akhulia – AFCON U20 2025

Photo Credit – Football Kenya Federation.

Kenya U-20 national team, Rising Stars, assistant coach Anthony Akhulia has revealed their readiness to take on Morocco in their opening fixture of the TotalEnergies CAF Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Egypt.

Participating at this stage of the tournament for the first time, and under the leadership of Salim Babu, Rising Stars have been drawn alongside record seven-time champions Nigeria, former winners Tunisia and Morocco.

The East African nation will begin their quest for glory with a fixture against Morocco at 30 June Stadium on Thursday. Despite coming up against the North African outfit, Akhulia is adamant they have prepared well to come out with a win in the Group B fixture.

“We have respect for Morocco in terms of how they have developed their football, but we also know what we have as Kenya and we don’t fear them, we know what our strengths are, so our approach is very clear, we will not sit back and say we respect them too much,” Akhulia told Pan-Africa Football.

“We have to win the first game and if we play defensively by staying behind then we won’t be able to create chances and score goals to win us the game, we have put in our strategy as coaches on how to approach the game, it is something I cannot say it here, but we want to win the first game so that it can give us an extra motivation going into the second match.”

After playing Morocco, Kenya will face Tunisia on Saturday, before wrapping up their group stage matches against Nigeria next Wednesday.