From left: Harambee Starlets players from left, midfielder Lorna Nyarinda, defender Elizabeth Ochaka, forward Tereza Engesha, and midfielder Mercy Airo during a training session at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat, Morocco, on July 30, 2026.

📋 Breaking It Down

Three matches. Zero wins. Seven goals conceded. No goal scored. Those numbers tell only part of the Harambee Starlets' difficult Women's Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) campaign.

The team’s disappointing showing has left Kenyan football lovers asking a difficult question: Were the Starlets simply outclassed by Africa's elite, or were they set up to fail long before they kicked a ball in Morocco?

While head coach Beldine Odemba points to lessons in preparation, tactics and international exposure, Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Hussein Mohammed says rebuilding a competitive national team takes years of sustained investment. But the Women's Representative at FKF’s National Executive Council, Kerubo Momanyi, argues the team never received the technical preparation required to compete, and that the federation prioritised logistics over football development. Together, their accounts paint a picture of a campaign whose shortcomings began long before the opening whistle.

📌 What You Need to Know

Harambe Starlets forward Marion Serenge (left) and Algeria midfielder Amira Ould tussle for the ball during Group A match of the 2026 Women Africa Cup of Nations played at Olympic Stadium in Rabat on August 3, 2026.

“It is very unfair to give people beef and expect them to make a fish stew,” Kerubo told Nation Sport yesterday, revealing that the much-publicised training camp in France did not serve its original purpose. “There was no need to take girls to France if they were not going to get any technical support. We keep setting our people up for failure because we don't give them adequate resources to prepare. Then we expect them to give us results,” she said.

As part of their preparations, Starlets travelled to France on July 15 where they were to enter a high performance camp in Miramas. There, they were to play friendlies against Olympique Lyon and Marseille, and to receive technical collaboration with the French Federation, as well as exposure to scouts.

Nation Sport can now reveal that as soon as the team reached France, there was a base switch to Aix-en-Provence, about 50 kilometres from Miramas, where the team eventually settled for a week. The switch was necessitated by the fact that the federation could not access the facilities in Miramas as had been anticipated. The change in venues eventually messed up the whole programme for Starlets, as none of the planned friendly matches materialised.

On her part, Beldine described the campaign as a painful but necessary learning experience. And although the team benefited from participating in the Fifa Women's Series earlier this year and later faced Zambia in preparation, Odemba says more quality friendlies before the tournament could have significantly improved Kenya's competitiveness.

"If we were able to engage in friendlies before the tournament, it would have made a bigger difference," she said. "We were hoping that we would do better. There have been a lot of lessons, from preparation to tactical approaches, to playing against different qualities of players and understanding the level of this competition.”

📰 Source: Nation Africa