Harambee Stars Under-20 coach Anthony 'Vierra' Akhulia has apologised to local football fans following a humiliating defeat to Malawi in an invitational tournament a fortnight ago.
Speaking over the weekend, Akhulia wondered what he might have done better to avert Kenya's 3-1 thumping at the hands of the host nation in the week-long invitational tournament that also included Zimbabwe.
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) appointed Akhulia to take full charge of the Rising Stars after head coach Salim Babu failed to make the trip to Malawi owing to a glitch in processing his travel documents.
"At some point, I felt like I had let all of you down. After the final, I couldn't even leave my room for dinner. I set some time aside for self-reflection and laid on the bed for over an hour asking myself what went wrong and what I could have done better," Akhulia stated.
"I knew I was going to be a punching bag with trolls, insults, and abuses on social media. But that wasn't my main worry. My mind was so occupied with so many questions. What if I could have fielded a whole new squad, would the results have been different?"
Akhulia had just guided the Rising Stars to an emphatic 3-0 win over hosts Malawi the previous day and was unsure what befell his charges in the subsequent encounter.
"But the squad had just won their previous match. What if we could have made good use of the numerous one-on-one scoring opportunities we created in the match? What if we would have avoided the small mistakes we made in the match that led us to concede?
"To all Kenyans, thank you for your overwhelming support since the Cecafa tournament last year. The feeling can't be explained. We let you down...I let you down..but it is a learning curve."
