Kenya, Malaysia tie scoreless in soccer friendly

NAIROBI, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenya, bent on winning qualification to the South Africa 2010 World Cup finals, played to a scoreless draw against host Malaysia Wednesday night, local officials said on Thursday.

Kenya's senior national team, Harambee Stars, are gunning for a place in the 2010 African Cup of Nations finals in Angola, and to some extent the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Stars are still very much in the race for a berth to the finals together with Nigeria, Tunisia and Mozambique in the African Zone qualifiers.

Football Kenya Limited (FKL) Secretary-General Sammy Obingo who accompanied the team to Malaysia was confident the east Africans can book the ticket to Angola.

"We are currently third in the group behind Nigeria and Tunisia. Any of the four teams can win the slot to the World Cup Finals," Obingo said by telephone from Malaysia.

Kenya, who have never qualified to the World Cup, are in Group B of the third round of the qualifying tournament.

They are currently in third spot with three points from three matches. They have lost to Nigeria, (0-3) and Tunisia (1-2) but managed a win over Mozambique (2-1).

Malaysia fielded the Under-23 Laos SEA Games-bound team against Kenya. Playing against the Under-23 team may only mean that the friendly was not an "A" friendly match and has no impact on Kenya's FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings.

The match was also not included on FIFA's official website. Previous International "A" friendly matches have been recorded on the Kenya page at FIFA.com

Malaysia is ranked 152 nd in the world, while Kenya is ranked at 105 in this month's rankings.

The last time Kenya, coached by German national, Antoine Hey, played an "A" friendly match was against Iran in March and earlier tie against Egypt in January.

Hey, who took charge of the team at the end of March, used the tour to test the squad comprising home-based players. None of the foreign-based Kenyan professionals was in the team.

The professionals are expected to link up with the team later in the month, ahead of the World and African Cup of Nations qualifier return match against Mozambique in Maputo.