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Kenya

No changes in Stars squad

NAIROBI, October 8 – Harambee Stars coach Francis Kimanzi has named an unchanged 18 man squad for the final 2010 World Cup group two qualifier against Guinea on Sunday.

Auxerre striker Dennis Oliech makes a return after sitting out the last match due to suspension but there is no room for Chris Litswa and the recalled Abdi Simba as Kimanzi kept faith with the group of that has done duty for most of the qualifiers.

Stars leave for Conakry on Thursday morning for the Guinea clash which will take place on Sunday.

Earlier Wednesday, the players received cash bonuses totalling Sh810,000 from the government.

Each players received Sh30,000 from Sports minister Helen Sambili following their excellent performance against Namibia where they won 1-0 thanks to well taken penalty by Jamal Mohammed.

“We have just presented the awards to Harambee Stars for the wonderful work they did on the September 6 and we hope they will do as well in Conakry,” she said.

The minister said the government was proud of the team’s focus and determination in the sport that will spur support towards football development in the country.

“With financial support coming from the government, Kenya is expected to be among the best privileged teams in Africa,” she commented.

Sambili who also handed the flag to captain Robert Mambo acknowledged the improvement made by stars in the Fifa rankings in which the country has gone up after beating Namibia, Zimbabwe and Guinea in Nairobi.

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Coach Francis Kimanzi said the team will travel to guinea tomorrow after the flight departure time was rectified.

“We were supposed to travel on Friday but due to the changes the team leaves tomorrow which has not affected our preparations though we expect some players to travel in the evening,” Kimanzi observed.

With the team holding its final training session in the camp, Kimanzi maintained that his players should stick to the team plan to achieve the result.

“We are not going to focus on individuals in the final fixture therefore I urge my players to stick to the strategies,” he said.

Stars are virtually guaranteed qualification to the next round while Guinea must win on Sunday to have a chance of progressing to the final round of qualifiers.

They lost their first match away to Namibia before registering back to back identical 2-0 wins over Guinea and Zimbabwe to force their way back into contention.

A valuable point away to Zimbabwe and a 1-0 home win over Namibia in September means that Stars are through to the next round.

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