Newly appointed Kenya national team head coach Benni McCarthy has shed light on the targets he aims to accomplish in charge of the East African nation after signing a two-year deal with the Harambee Stars.

The Bafana legend is joined by former Orlando Pirates shot-stopper Moneeb Josephs, who will serve as the goalkeeper coach, while Vasili Manousakis will be the assistant coach, with Pilela Maposa joining as the performance analyst to complete the South African-dominated technical team.

While he is excited for his new project, which is his first national team job, McCarthy acknowledges that changing the country’s fortunes won’t be a walk in the park after the nation missed out on the upcoming AFCON set to be hosted in Morocco in December.

“I think it’s hard when you come into a team where the competition has been fierce, and you didn’t qualify for AFCON. So, I think in the back of the players’ minds it’s a big, missed opportunity that we didn’t qualify for the upcoming AFCON,” he stated.

However, the ex-Manchester United first-team striker’s coach sees the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Gambia and Gabon respectively as a good opportunity to lift the morale in the camp as they bid to make their first appearance in the global football tournament.

“But I think these games are coming at a time where you can make a mindset shift because qualifying for the World Cup is the biggest thing in football – to see your country participate and playing in the World Cup,” McCarthy said, who became the first player to score at the FIFA World Cup for Bafana Bafana in 1998 in France. .

The 47-year-old tactician challenged his troops, calling for an improvement of standards with the World Cup qualifiers on the horizon for his first test in charge of the team. 

McCarthy says his main objective is to qualify Kenya to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

“So, for me, I’m ambitious and I think we want to work towards [building] a strong Kenya team. We want to have a good start against Gambia and Gabon to give us a slim chance of maybe becoming one or two teams that can qualify for the World Cup,” said the South African mentor.

“Imagine how special that would be, Kenya, missing out on qualifying for the African Nations Cup, but finally qualifies for the World Cup. Imagine how exciting that would be for the players, so that for me is the goal.

“So, the sole focus now is to do our very best to make these players understand how important it is to do well for the remainder of the World Cup qualifiers, so that we can try to really build on something to qualify this country to the 2026 World Cup in the United States.”

He continued: “But then also give us a good platform for the CHAN that’s coming up for the local based players so that they can also see the success that we want to achieve, whether it’s in the CHAN or the World Cup qualifiers.” 

In his native country, McCarthy lifted the MTN8 title with Cape Town City in the 2018/19 season before being voted PSL coach of the year during the 2020/21 campaign following his exploits with AmaZulu where he guided Usuthu to an impressive second place finish in the league.