Kenya had to play their Group F matchday three and four fixtures against Burundi and Ivory Coast at the Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe, Malawi because the stadiums above had been closed by the government for renovation in readiness to co-host the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN) and the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

Harambee Stars returned home with two points - drawing 1-1 against the Swallows and 0-0 against the African champions.

Kenya have missed the fans

Olunga, who features for Al-Duhail in the Qatar Stars League, admitted their performance in the two qualifiers was partly affected by the fact they were playing home matches away from their fans.

The former Gor Mahia striker further called on the government to take the matter seriously and make sure when Harambee Stars plays their 2025 AFCON qualifiers in September, the pitches will be ready for use. The draw for the qualifiers will be held on July 4th in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“We had the fans, who travelled all the way to support us and those who reside in Malawi, I want to thank them on behalf of the team but in such matches, we don’t need to play away from home, we need to play in Nairobi in front of our fans because football in Africa nowadays you need that home support to qualify,” Olunga told Flashscore.

“Home matches are the key, if you win them you are in a good position to qualify in any competition, and you can only achieve that with your fans behind you.”

The lanky Olunga continued: “I want to urge the government to make sure they renovate the stadium, we have 2025 (AFCON) qualifiers coming up in September, October, and November, those are six important matches that we cannot afford to play away from home and we can perform well if we play at home.”

Olunga, who fired blanks in the two matches, said it was a shame for a country like Kenya to 'borrow' venues for their teams to use from other countries whereas the work needed to improve the Kasarani and Nyayo can be done in weeks.

“It is not good for a country like Kenya to play home matches away from home, we have good stadiums, for example, Kasarani and Nyayo stadium, they are venues that need renovation that meet CAF/FIFA standards and we are good to use them,” added Olunga.

“Even after the Ivory Coast game, Seko (Fofana) asked me what it means in Nairobi you don’t have a better pitch than where we have played. I told him we have venues but now they need to meet CAF/FIFA standards and I am sure we have enough revenue in Kenya to take the initiative with a lot of seriousness and upgrade our stadium.

“It is high time the government focused on getting us the stadia ready so that even our fans can get to see us play, it has been a long time since we played a competitive game at home and the fans also want to see their team in action, I insist we have six matches for the AFCON qualifiers coming up and if we want to achieve something, then we must have our stadia ready.”

The last time Kenya played in Nairobi was on September 12th, 2023, during a friendly which they lost 1-0 against South Sudan. Since then, they have played seven matches away, including the famous 2-1 friendly win against World Cup hosts Qatar on September 7th, 2023.

Olunga remained confident with home support, and good preparations Kenya will make it to the 2025 AFCON. “The team is on the right track, we have not lost a game in 2024, and with good preparations, we can make it to 2025 AFCON, we have a good team coming up including those from the local league, and it is just a matter of putting things right, getting the venues ready and good preparations.”

Burundi draw a wake-up call

Olunga, who has scored two goals in the qualifiers, said the draw against the Swallows sounded like defeat and pushed them to produce a great display against the Elephants to snatch a draw.

“The Ivory Coast game was better, we tried as hard as we could, we knew it was not going to be easy against them, we knew we needed to push ourselves and play a good game, we did the same and we were happy to get a point, we should have picked three, but that is football, even Ivory Coast had chances to take three, but it was good to get a point from the African champions,” offered Olunga.

“Against Burundi, we wanted to take maximum points but it was not possible, it was a setback to our ambitions in the group but I thank the players for responding with a good show against Ivory Coast to enable us to get a point.”

The former Girona and Kashiwa Reysol player discussed how Kenya had hoped to beat Burundi saying they planned to return home with four points.

“We all had hopes of beating Burundi, we went to Malawi knowing the least points we could bring back home was four points, at the least but it never happened and this was derailed after our first game against Burundi, all the players were disappointed with Burundi result but it was not the end of the world, we recharged ourselves and put up a good show against Ivory Coast,” added Olunga.

“We told ourselves the Burundi game was in the past and we must focus, and the players responded well, we knew Ivory Coast wanted two wins from their two matches, so we knew it wouldn’t be easy, but all the players showed up, at least each player covered over 10kms during the game, it shows you the effort we put up and got something from the game, it was a huge effort from the players, we had to sacrifice for the team and the country.”

Kenya on the right track

Despite losing their third spot in the six-team group to Burundi, who beat Seychelles to attain seven points, two more than Kenya, who dropped to third, Olunga remained adamant that Harambee Stars still have a good chance to qualify for the global tournament.

“We indeed got two points out of six, and that is not good enough but we should admit we never lost any game, especially against Burundi we knew we would get three points and this is football, you cannot underrate Burundi, they had played well against Gabon and Gambia and as much as we wanted to take three points from them does not mean they are a weak team,” stressed Olunga.

“We now have five points on the table we know we have other matches to play starting with Gambia away, so we still have a long way to go, we still have a lot of matches to play and we still have hopes of qualifying, most people are looking at Ivory Coast as the favourite to qualify but if we managed to take one point from them, then anything is possible, not every team will be able to take a point from Ivory Coast so that is a plus for Kenya.”