"Happy but felt we should have won": Firat reacts to Russia draw, delighted to disappoint 'non- believers'

Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat said that he was left delighted with how his squad played on Monday 16 October in a 2-2 draw with Russia in an international friendly fixture staged at the Mardan Sports Complex in Antalya, Turkey, but still felt there was a way the team could have still won.

An early goal from the visitors scored by Aleksandr Sobolev in the eighth minute was canceled out in the first half courtesy of two strikes from Anthony Akumu and Masud Juma to see Kenya take a 2-1 lead at the break.

Harambee Stars’ advantage would carry on till the dying minutes of the game, when Russian substitutes - Aleksandr Silyanov and Ivan Oblyakov - connected to see the latter score a late equalizer with just a minute of regular time left.

The fact that Kenya had squeezed out a draw against an opponent 70 places above them, was a delight for Firat, as he admitted post-game.

“It's the first time first of all that Kenya has played against a European team and a big football country with a big history,” he said. “To play against those top players is really tough but we played well, but started a bit nervous, and made some simple mistakes in the first goal.

“The rest of the way I felt we controlled the game and had a lot of goal chances that we could score to win. But it's football you know at the last minute, Russia scored and therefore I am happy with how we played, but we could also win I think.”

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On losing starting goalkeeper Bryne Odhiambo to an apparent left foot injury early on into the game - in the fourteenth minute - Firat said: “The sad part is that our keeper got injured. That was the biggest problem we had today.”

An update on his status was not provided however.

With the international friendlies over and done with heading to the 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers next month, the head coach was at least happy at the end, that he was causing some disappointments to the ‘non-believing’ fans.

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“I know many people expected in these games that we would get five or six (goals) whatever,” Firat said. “I am happy that we disappointed those people, and it shows that we are on a good way also to compete with other big teams, and I hope that we can take all this on our way to both the World Cup and AFCON Qualifiers.”

Kenya’s next fixtures will be on the road, when they play Gabon and Seychelles on 13 and 20 November respectively.