Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat was left frustrated with the number of clear cut chances that went begging in the 2022 World Cup 1-0 home defeat against Mali on Sunday at the Nyayo National Stadium.Stars fell to Ibrahima Kone’s second half strike to crash out of contention for a slot in the finals as the West Africans have gathered unassailable points from the pool.Kone who netted thrice in the first leg expertly send the ball to Brian Bwire’s roof after the defence was caught napping to send Mali top of the group with ten points, two ahead of second placed Uganda who felled Rwanda by a solitary goal.54’| Goal🇰🇪 0-1 🇲🇱🇲🇱 Ibrahim Kone#Tunaweza— Harambee Stars (@Harambee__Stars) October 10, 2021 Firat was hoping that he could guide his charges to redeem themselves from the disappointing 5-0 first leg loss suffered in the hands of Mali last week in Agadir, Morocco.Further, the Turkish gaffer was hoping to register his first win since taking over from Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee last month but he will now have to try his luck in the subsequent assignments.Firat in the post match interview observed that Stars would have put the visitors to the sword had his forward line poked home goals from the chances created.Tusker winger Boniface Muchiri was presented with the clearest chances in the game early in the first half after Michael Olunga put him through on goal.With the goalkeeper to beat, the lanky player elected to fire directly into the waiting hands denying Kenya the second goal in the qualifiers as well as his first international goal.A spirited performance by the Stars but ultimately a game of missed chances. We created but did not finish. Our youthful team will emerge stronger.F.T🇰🇪 0-1🇲🇱 🇲🇱 Ibrahim Kone#Tunaweza pic.twitter.com/9Zd7XS8XgA— Harambee Stars (@Harambee__Stars) October 10, 2021 Duke Abuya and Abdallah Hassan also squandered clear chances especially in the first half that Stars called the shots and looked like were on course to bag the first win the group.” They had so many goal chances and to me is unbelievable that we didn’t not score. We had eight to nine clear cut chances but we could not score. They had one and got the job done,” he regretted.Firat in the meantime didn’t mince his words to the match officials who manned the game for having a bias on the visitors. The tactician was cautioned in the second half for protesting sole of the calls made.
