Kenya vow to overturn Malawi in Olympic women's football qualifiers
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E-mail Xinhua, August 31, 2019
NAIROBI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan national women's football team returned on Friday and vow to beat Malawi at home to overturn a 3-2 road loss and proceed to the next round of the Tokyo Olympic qualifying.
A dismal show in the first half was all that Malawi required in Lilongwe to score three goals and even a spirited second-half show from Kenya's Harambee Starlets could not flip the score in their favor.
Now, head coach David Ouma is on the war path saying they will turn offensive firing from all cylinders on Sunday in Machakos when the two sides meet for the return leg.
However, the Kenya team will lack the home ground and fans advantage as the match will be played behind closed doors.
"I must congratulate my players for putting up a strong fighting spirit especially in the second half. Now we must turn the guns in full force to the Malawians and secure the goals to proceed to the next round," said a determined Ouma on Friday in Nairobi.
The coach viewed the 3-2 loss in Lilongwe as an advantage saying they are critical two away goals to count on.
"We will try to build confidence in the players to win it in Machakos since we have an away goal head start. We just need to keep it tight at the back and I am confident we can go through to the next round," Ouma said.
The team headed straight to camp in Machakos, upon arrival in Nairobi, for training.
Malawi are not expected in the country until Saturday morning.
The winner on aggregate score after the two legs, will have a bigger hurdle to jump as they must overcome giants Ghana or Gabon in the third round of the qualifiers.
In other games in the continent, hosts Cameroon will host Ethiopia Yaounde as Algeria travels to Nigeria.
Other matches on Saturday will see Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) take on Equatorial Guinea, Ghana host Gabon, Zambia away to Zimbabwe, South Africa face Botswana, and Cote d'Ivoire heading to Bamako to meet Mali.
Eight teams will make the fourth round. The final round with two teams, also to be played on a home-and-away basis, will take place in early 2020 with the dates to be confirmed.
The winner will qualify for the Olympics while the runner-up will contest a play-off against Chile, who finished in second place in the South America qualifying tournament. Enditem
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