Kenya’s Under-20 coach Anthony Akhulia has said their maiden experience at the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cairo, Egypt, has inspired them to ensure that the Rising Stars are a common fixture in the biennial continental competition.
Kenya sent a team to a Junior AFCON competition for the first time ever, after finishing second at the CECAFA regional qualifiers. Despite the fact that the team finished off their maiden sojourn with no victory in the Egyptian capital, Akhulia says there were more positives than negatives to pick from the experience.
Kenya finished off their Group B campaign with just a single point off a 2-2 last day draw with Nigeria. They lost their opening match 3-2 to Morocco in a thrilling duel, before going down 3-1 to Tunisia in their second match, essentially ending their dream of making the knockout phase of the competition.
But, despite the failure to achieve one of their minimum targets at the tournament, the Rising Stars believe competing in Cairo was the first step towards a more improved performance in subsequent qualifications.
And now, the team wants to ensure they become a permanent fixture in Continental assignments.
Coach Akhulia sat down with Telecomasia.net in an exclusive interview, underlining the achievements, lessons and ambitions borne from their maiden Continental sojourn.
- How was the experience competing in Africa for the first time ever?
- It was honestly a great experience. Maybe not the best performance and achievement that we would have wished for, but the blessing of just being there and competing was good for us. We were in a very difficult pool against teams which have been there before and even won the tournament and I think we gave our best. Should have been better because looking back, no team outplayed us. We just gave away cheap goals in all the matches.
- The first game was against Morocco, and the performance was really good leading twice but you ended up losing the match. How much of an effect did this have setting the tone for the next two games?
- We had a really good and structured plan heading to that game and it worked because we scored first. However, our defending was not good and we ended up losing the game because we gave out some easy goals despite leading twice. We created many chances and I believe this game should have ended at least 5-3. The confidence we had in that game probably cost us in the second match because we went in against Tunisia confident that we could win.
We had given such a good performance and we believed if we carried it on, it would be easy. We faced a Tunisia side that had just assembled a team and they had lost against Nigeria and we were so confident, which ended up making us complacent and once again gave out cheap goals. We were not very strong bouncing back despite controlling majority of the game. Had we got even a point in that match, I believe things would have been very different against Nigeria and we would have made the round of 16.
- Looking back at those three games, how much of an inspiration were they for you and the boys in terms of making more qualifications?
- The inspiration from just playing was immense. I believe the best thing we can do as a start is to conquer the region first. This means we outplay Uganda and Tanzania and make sure every time we are there qualifying. If we can do this then I think we will be in the AFCON regularly and we can go even further with a semi-final ticket being our next target.
Just playing there has shown us that we have talent and we only need to do the right things and prepare well. We had one friendly against Ghana, and we saw that against Nigeria, similar scenarios popped up. If we had played at least one friendly match against a North African opponent, I believe we would have been better prepared to handle Morocco and Tunisia.
But I believe we are inspired as a technical bench to ensure that we are regulars at these youth competitions. This is the best way to build our football.
- What are some of the lessons that you have picked up from Cairo?
- There were lessons for both us as coaches and players. The biggest lesson I think we picked is game management; we should be able to manage our games better. In two games, we were leading and we couldn’t sustain that. An example against Tunisia, the moment they got into the lead, they managed the game so well. That was our biggest undoing.
We kept rushing things even when we were on top and that ended up costly. In terms of football talent and game ability, I believe we matches up and were even better than all our opponents. But we really failed in managing the game. If we do so, I believe we are primed to have better perfomances and results will be different.
- With the Africa Nations Championship (CHAN) coming up, do you believe some of the young boys have raised their hands to be picked by coach Benni McCarthy?
- I can’t speak for the senior team head coach but I am confident that some boys have shown their abilities and that they can challenge to get on top there. If you look at Lawrence (Okoth) who scored in all the games, a player like Manzur (Okwaro) who was outstanding in defense, the likes of Wangaya (Kevin) who was named man of the match against Nigeria and many more, we have players who can compete at the top. They have the quality and the confidence. I believe that if we can blend the youth and senior players, we will have a very good squad for CHAN. I am confident we will see quite a number of them called up.
- Finally, there has been vast talk of players who impressed being scouted. How great is this for their careers?
- There have been many rumours about many of them being scouted, and some invited for trials and I am really happy with that because this is the real essence of these age-grade competitions. There were so many agents and teams who attended the tournament and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them got moves out of the country. Of course there are many rumours at this point but I believe we will see some movement in the next transfer window.
