By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (September 5^th 2025)

Out

The slim hope that Kenya’s Harambee Stars had of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup ended today. Former Gor Mahia coach Jonathan McKinstry saw his Gambia team beat Benni McCarthy’s Kenya 3-1 at Nairobi’s Kasarani Stadium. Kenya’s hopes were all but extinguished in the first half – the Gambia scored three goals in 38 minutes.

Against the run of play, Sheriff Sinyan put Gambia ahead within the first quarter of an hour – 12 minutes to be precise. Yankuba Minteh’s corner was headed in from the far post to Kenyan keeper Bryne Omondi’s left. Unfortunately for the Harambee Stars, Timothy Ouma’s spectacular long-range equaliser was disallowed.

Kenya continued to press for an equaliser, but fourteen minutes after the Gambia took the lead, Musa Barrow’s cross-field pass set Minteh up on the right of the area to shoot across Omondi to double Gambia’s lead.

Much to McCarthy’s chagrin sloppy defending allowed Adama Sidibeh to steal the ball and surge forward on the right before crossing it for Barrow to shoot across Omondi to the keeper’s left to make it 3-0 with half time seven minutes away.

The match was all but over by half time, but Kenya struggled to find a wayback into the match. Less than ten minutes into the second half, Duke Abuya scored, but his celebrations were rightly curtailed for an offside in the build-up. With less than ten minutes of normal time to play, Ryan Ogam latched on to Sylvester Owino Ochino’s through-ball to register a consolation goal by bursting into the area and lobbing Gambian goalkeeper, Baboucarr Gaye. Despite 8 minutes of added time the Harambee Stars could not add to their total.

This meant that Kenya was now limited to a maximum of 15 points (if they won their remaining three matches), but it made no difference as la Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon both won convincingly, taking them to 19 and 18 points respectively. Burundi remained on 10 points after 7 matches – still in with a slim but unlikely chance of progressing further.

McCarthy deflected criticism of not using enough players that emerged in the CHAN, telling journalists that they would have conceded ten if he had. The Harambee Stars were out – Gambia too. It was between la Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon for the automatic berth in the World Cup and play-off spot.