NAIROBI, Kenya, September 18 – Kenya’s representatives, Upper Hill Secondary and Olympics Girls’ school opened their Airtel Rising Stars Africa Championship campaigns with losses in Nigeria.
The Kenyan girls put up a spirited performance before going down 0-1 to hosts Nigeria in the opening match.
The evenly contested match played at Agege Township Stadium remained deadlocked in the opening half.
Nigeria notched the all -important goal in the 50th minute through Racheal Brown.
The script was the same for Upper Hill who were gunned down 2-3 by Madagascar.
Madagascar started off a better side scoring three quick goals in the first half through Lalaina Andreana, Jean Yvon and Herniana in the 6th, 12th and 22nd minutes of the encounter.
Upper Hill staged a late comeback and reduced the deficit through Josephat Oyugi in the 26th before Nichodemus Otieno set up a tense finish with a strike in the 53rd.
Upper Hill meet Congo in a must-win encounter on Wednesday while Olympic face the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the other opening match Nigerian lads maintained the country’s perfect start after beating the Democratic Republic of Congo 2-0.
The Airtel Rising Stars U-17 soccer tournament is a unique pan-African initiative of Airtel Africa designed to create a pool of talents to feed the national football teams of African countries.