Time for National women's football team to shine

Spedag Terry Ouko(l) and Spedag Benta Akinyi fight for the ball when they played women league at Thika Stadium. Queens won 4-1. ON 16/08/14 PHOTO; JENIPHER WACHIE

National women's football team, Harambee Starlets will today play Egypt in a friendly match at Kenyatta Stadium, Machakos from 3pm.

The match was to be held yesterday at Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani, but was moved to Machakos. The Egyptians arrived in the country early Friday and had a training session at Kasarani in the evening.

Starlets have been in residential camp for the last three days in preparation for the match and head coach David Ouma has expressed confidence in the squad saying the team has worked on some technical and tactical aspects apart from working on fitness ahead of today's match day.

"The training has been good and the girls have responded well. We selected players from the premier league and did the final selection on Friday," said the tactician, who is also a CAF coaching instructor.

This will be the second international friendly match for the senior side, after they played Ethiopia a year ago, and suffered a 5-0 defeat.

The home girls will be using this friendly as a build-up match towards the 2016 Rio Olympic Games qualifiers in April when they will play against Botswana.

There will be no gate charges for this encounter and fans have been urged to turn up and support the women's team. This will be the first time the federation has entered the senior women's team in an international qualifiers in a long time.

It will be also a good opportunity for the junior players to show their worth especially the Under-20, who were eliminated in the 2012 Fifa World Cup qualifying matches. They were knocked out in the third round, which was the team's best ever performance.

Last year, Starlets were eliminated in the first round of the African Women Championship by Amavumbi of Rwanda. Ouma is being assisted by Kenyan International Dorine Nabwire.

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