Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat believes his side did not get the result they deserved in a 2-2 friendly draw against Russia at the Titanic Sports Complex in Antalya, Turkey on Monday night.
It was Russia who took the lead against the run of play in the eighth minute when Aleksandr Sobolev took advantage of poor defending to score past Bryne Omondi. In the 13th minute, Kenya suffered a blow when Omondi sustained an injury and was replaced by Patrick Matasi.
In the 16th minute Anthony Akumu levelled the scores for Kenya before striker Masud Juma added the second in the 36th minute for a 2-1 lead at the half-time break. With Kenya looking to upstage Russia in their own backyard, Ivan Oblyakov scored in the 89th minute to snatch a draw for the hosts.
Speaking after the game, the 53-year-old Firat said: “Kenya never played this kind of teams before and most of the people thought we would be afraid playing against them, I know many people expected us lose five or six goals and I am happy that we disappointed them and showed them we are on a good way to compete with other big teams and I hope we can take all this to the World Cup and AFCON qualifiers,” said Firat.
He added: “It is the first time Kenya played against a European team and it is a big country with a big football history and to play against this kind of teams with good players is very tough, the boys played very well, we started nervously and we conceded a very simple mistake goal but recovered to lead at the half-time break.”
Firat further admitted losing keeper Omondi in the early stages of the game was a huge setback to his plans but insisted Kenya could have won the game. “The setback is that our goalkeeper Bryan got injured, this is the biggest problem we had but the rest of the game I think we controlled, we had a lot of goal chances but it is football as last minute Russia scored but from the way we played we could have won the game,” explained Firat.
Kenya will now shift their focus to the World Cup qualifiers where they are pooled in Group F alongside Ivory Coast, Seychelles, Burundi, Gambia, and Gabon. They will kick off their campaign with an away game against The Panthers of Gabon on November 13.