Harambee Starlets coach David Ouma is contemplating naming a huge squad ahead of the next month’s third round of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualifiers and the women’s Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup.
The two legged qualifier against the Shepolopolo of Zambia is set for between November 4-12 while Cecafa is scheduled for November 14-23 in Tanzania.
With the two events just running almost within the same period, Ouma said he will have to find a solution so that players don’t burn out.
“We are yet to be given the green light by the Football Kenya Federation to assemble the provisional squad for the Zambia assignment. But now that we have the Cecafa assignment also coming up, I’m sure we will have a larger provisional squad so that we can have options,” said Ouma.
He added: “It goes without saying that players who will do the Zambia assignment might be fatigued and have little time to recover with the Cecafa event starting two days later. And with such development we need to have other players to blend.”
Kenya, who have been drawn in Pool ‘B’ alongside runners up Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti, finished fourth during the 2018 event that was held in Rwanda.
“Uganda and Ethiopia are familiar to us but we haven’t played Djibouti before. We want to prepare well and hopefully we will give a good account of ourselves but generally, growth is all we are looking out for,” added Ouma.
Pool ‘A’ has champions Tanzania, Burundi, South Sudan and Zanzibar.
The two top teams in each group will proceed to the semi-finals.
Kenya launch their title hunt against Ethiopia on November 15, take on Djibouti two days later before they wrap up the group stage with a tie against neighbours Uganda on November 19.