Kenyan fans were left heartbroken on Sunday after the country’s flag bearers in the ongoing Cecafa Women’s Club Championship Vihiga Queens lost unceremoniously to visiting Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) in their opening match of the competition staged at the Nyayo National Stadium.

Before the match many had tipped Vihiga to start the tournament on a high owing to the quality of players in the team, some of whom play for the national team, Harambee Starlets, 

But Sunday’s 4-2 loss to CBE complicates Vihiga’s chances of winning the tournament as the host team and earning the honours to represent Kenya and the region in the inaugural Confederation of African Football (CAF) Women’s Champions League set to take place in Cairo, Egypt, later this year.

However, Vihiga Queens’ assistant coach Boniface Nyamunyamu remains adamant, saying that losing the opening group match is not losing the tournament.

He says they have two more matches in the group and he is sure of winning both and turning around their campaign.

“We tried our level best but our opponents were better than us. We played our game but CBE were technically superior to us.

However, all is not lost and I want to ask Kenyans to be calm, football is all about mistakes, we have learned ours and we’re going to correct those mistakes we have seen against CBE, and we’re going to bounce back, that’s without a doubt.

So we still have a chance to win and a chance to qualify,” said Nyamunyamu.

As Vihiga stumbled, other rivals were in jubilation after winning their opening matches.

As the eight-team tournament officially kicked off on Saturday, Lady Doves of Uganda made history by becoming the first-ever women’s team to win the first match in the tournament and they did so in style by emphatically beating FAD FC of Djibouti 5-0 on Saturday at Nyayo Stadium.