The Kenya U20 team, the Rising Stars, will take to the pitch on Wednesday evening for their final Group B match at the U20 Africa Cup of Nations, having already been eliminated after back-to-back losses.Salim Babu’s team lost both their group matches—3-2 to Morocco on Thursday, 1 May, and 3-1 to Tunisia last Sunday. They scored first in both games but failed to secure a win, with defensive errors proving to be Kenya’s main Achilles’ heel.##NAJAVA_MECA_8910386##In the match against Morocco, Lawrence Ouma and Hassan Beja scored in a disappointing, error-laden first half. Against Tunisia, Ouma opened the scoring in the 38th minute, but Kenya conceded in first-half stoppage time and twice in the final 20 minutes to lose 3-1, a result that sealed their fate in the tournament.The Rising Stars will now play a dead-rubber match against Nigeria this evening before returning to Nairobi. The tournament format sees the top two teams from each group progress to the quarterfinals.The best two third-placed teams across all groups also advance to the quarterfinals.Ambassador Outa on reason Egypt beats Kenya in sporting infrastructure developmentKenya, with zero points, cannot finish among the top two in Group B. As for the best third-placed teams, one slot has already been secured by a team from Group A, while in Group B, Tunisia, with three points, holds a head-to-head advantage over Kenya.This eliminates the Rising Stars’ hopes of advancing from Group B, leaving them to focus on concluding their tournament participation.##NAJAVA_MECA_8912383##Assistant coach Anthony Akhulia refused to blame individual players for the costly defensive mistakes in the opening two matches, emphasising that it was a collective issue to address ahead of the Nigeria game.“It’s not right to single out individuals. It’s a team problem. It’s something we need to work on before we face our next opponent. It is a concern for me and our technical bench,” he said.In the match against Tunisia, Kenya missed first-choice goalkeeper Bernard Jairo due to injury, and coach Babu will hope to have him back today after errors from his understudy, Wyclifford Oduor, in the game against the North Africans. Left-back Telena Ochieng could also feature after missing the first two matches.The match starts at 6 PM (EAT) and will be live on the CAF TV YouTube page.Rising Stars midfielder addresses team misgivings on the big stage
