Kenya U20 coach gives reason behind AFCON loss to Tunisia

Kenya men’s U20 national team coach Anthony Akhulia says "lapses in concentration" from his players cost them their second game against Tunisia in the ongoing U20 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cairo, Egypt.

Akhulia, speaking after Kenya’s 3-1 defeat at the 30 June Stadium on Sunday, said the Rising Stars players failed to take control of the match in crucial moments, and ultimately had a poor showing as compared to their opening day defeat to Morocco last Thursday.

Kenya, for another game running, took the lead through striker Lawrence Okoth, but could not hold on to it as they conceded an equalizer right at the stroke of halftime, before capitulating in astonishing fashion in the second-half.

Asked to gauge Kenya’s performance on Sunday, Akhulia said: “Comparing this to our first match, I think we didn’t play well. We were a bit slow in our movement, our midfield didn’t click that much, and our defense was again caught up in areas that we couldn’t defend well. It wasn’t a good match for us.”

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Of specific concern to Akhulia was the apparent repetition of mistakes by his players, who in a second game running, conceded an equalizer deep in first-half stoppage time.

“We’re having lapses in concentration towards the end of the first half. It happened again, just like in the first match,” the Bidco United coach said, struggling to pin-point a particular reason behind the occurrence.

"The stoppages in the match every time we were moving forward ..the game had many injuries, and the added minutes at the end of course.

“Basically I think there were moments we were supposed to rise, but we let Tunisia take control of the match. That was our biggest letdown.”

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After two games, Kenya now holds the unwanted record of being the team to have conceded the most goals (six) in the competition.

“It’s not right,” Akhulia said on his team's defense. “It's a team problem. You can’t single out individuals.

It’s something we need to work on before we face our next opponent. It is a concern for me, and our technical bench.”

Rising Stars, who are bottom of Group B with zero points, will now need to win their final pool game against Nigeria on Wednesday (1800 EAT), and need a helping hand from other groups to stand a chance of sneaking into the knockouts.

As per the tournament format, the top two teams per group will qualify automatically to the quarter-finals, with two best-third teams also making it through to the last eight.

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