By Bismarck Mutahi

This week has been all about the World Cup/ Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and more so entry of Harambee Stars to the next round.

First, it is in order to congratulate coach Francis Kimanzi and his charges for a job well done and ensuring passage to the final phase of the road to South Africa and Angola.

Debate on whether we should have/not have a foreign coach for the third round of the qualifiers is something for another day, but what we should look forward to is the draw set to be done in Zurich in the next 72 hours.

Seeding for the World Cup was done on Tuesday and the usual suspects Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and Ivory Coast were put in Pot 1 meaning they are the top seeds in Africa.

One can as well argue these are the five African nations that will be joining hosts South Africa in flying the African flag at the World Cup.

It also means when the draw is done in Zurich, Kenya will find itself in a group that has one of the above top seeded sides.

It shows what a difficult task it is going to be for our national team to top the group and make a first ever appearance at the World Cup, and how befitting it would be considering it is the first time the African continent is hosting the football fiesta.

But apart from been grouped with one of the above teams we also have the second seeds in former African champions Tunisia, North African powerhouses Morocco and Algeria alongside Guinea and Mali.

What this means is we can be pooled with Egypt, Morocco and Togo or a group that reads Cameroon, Tunisia, Kenya and Rwanda or maybe we could be drawn alongside Ivory Coast, Guinea and Togo.

The reason why I am bringing up the issue of groups is to show the task ahead of us and what should be our target once Fifa conducts the draw.

I know many Kenyans including myself would like to see the likes of Denis Oliech, Patrick Oboya and Arnold Origi locking horns with Kaka, Robinho, Wayne Rooney, Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Fernando Torres, Andrea Pirlo and the like.

What a World Cup it will be for Kenya to support a team of their own and not associate with the likes of France, who seem to have black players from the goalkeeper to the striker or Brazil that seem to pull more fans across the world.

It will not be a disaster if we fail to make it to the World Cup but it would be heartbreaking if we failed to qualify for Angola’s Nations Cup.

Looking at the possible groupings, the worse we should finish is third which would be enough to take us to Angola and that should be our target when the qualifiers kick off in March.

— The writer (bmutahi@eastandard.net) is a senior sub editor at The Standard