Kenya draw Mauritius in road to Russia World Cup

Kenya will begin the journey to qualify for a first ever Fifa World Cup in 2018 with a date against Mauritius away in October.

The match-up was confirmed following a draw of the competition conducted by the sport's world governing body in St Petersburg, Russia Saturday.

An aggregate win for Harambee Stars over the Islanders, who are 64 places below Kenya on the Fifa rankings, will hand Kenya a potentially tricky date against Cape Verde Islands.

The aggregate winner of the Mauritus/Kenya-Cape Verde tie will head to the final phase with 19 other teams.

The 20 winners from the second round knockout matches will be drawn in five groups of four (to be made at the end of the 2nd round). The group winners will qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

"My dream and that of my teammates has always been to qualify for an international tournament, be it the World Cup or the Africa Nations Cup. I don't know much about our first opponents (Mauritius) as a footballing nation, but I am confident our technical bench will do research on them before we meet in October,” Harambee Stars vice-captain Allan Wanga told Nation Sport.

“The other challenge we now face is to juggle between the Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup qualifiers," added Wanga, who recently joined Tanzanian moneybags Azam.

IMPROVE ON PERFORMANCES

Stars, who are currently under the tutelage of Scot Bobby Williamson, will however have to vastly improve on the recent performances to stand a chance of making it to the group stages.

The draw was graced by Fifa chief Sepp Blatter and Russian President Vladmir Putin among a galaxy of present and former football stars including Cameroonian legend Samuel Eto'o, Italy's 2006 World Cup winner Fabio Cannavarro and Brazilian Ronaldo Luis Nazario da Lima.

Selected first round draw:

Somali v Niger

Gambia v Namibia

Chad v Sierra Leone

Djibouti v Swaziland

Seychelles v Burundi

Central Africa Republic v Madagascar

Tanzania v Malawi