World Cup Qualifying: Kenya striker Olunga remains confident about qualification chances

Despite Kenya’s qualification chances to the 2026 FIFA World Cup suffering a blow following Gabon’s 4-0 victory against Seychelles, striker Michael Olunga has urged his teammates to focus on winning their remaining matches in the qualifiers.

Gabon walloped Seychelles in a Group F fixture at National Sports Complex Pitch 1 in Mauritania on Wednesday.

The victory, courtesy of a hat-trick from Denis Bouanga, and substitute Yannis M’Bemba ensured that the Panthers, who played minus their lead striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, moved above Ivory Coast with 18 points, and thus threatened Kenya’s chances of qualifying for their first-ever appearance at the global tournament.

“Of course, if you look at the results from yesterday’s game, Gabon picked up a win…practically, the maximum points we can take from this is 18, and in football, you never say never, we have to compete with everything,” said Olunga as quoted by Pulse Sports.

“First of all, it’s a big responsibility and an honour to represent the country to represent the nation so we want to fight hard until the last group game. Hopefully, we get to the maximum of 18 and see what happens there.

“Of course, we also want to build a team for the upcoming tournaments and also in terms of our FIFA rankings, we have to compete fairly and ensure we get good results so that in the next classification, we can be at a better place.”

Kenya currently sits fourth with six points, behind Gabon, Ivory Coast, and Burundi. Gabon lead the pile with 18 points, Ivory Coast dropped to second with 16, while Burundi remained third with 10 points.

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