AFC Leopards head coach Tomas Trucha is confident in his team’s ability despite losing the first match of the 2024/25 Football Kenya Federation Premier League season.

Ingwe were beaten 1-0 by Posta Rangers on Sunday, September 14, 2024, at Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos courtesy of a goal struck by Felix Oluoch.

Despite the outcome, Trucha is confident that AFC Leopards remain a strong side even after dropping three points in the nascent campaign.

The tactician, however, wants his boys to get a proper response when they face Bidco United in their next game.

“I believe we are a strong team, a big team, and so we should show everybody that it was not a good result and come the Bidco game, we should respond and win the game,” Trucha told the press.

Absence

Against Posta Rangers, Trucha did not have players including Pater Maker, the South Sudan’s captain. The coach, however, did not want to blame the loss on the players that were not available and rather said the issue was the inability for those who played to score.

“These FIFA/CAF breaks are always a risk, and you don’t always have the players to build a team, but again, I did not see a problem with the players we played; the problem is that we did not score,” he added.

Trucha believes that AFC Leopards should have won the game had they taken their chances against Rangers.

“Finishing was a challenge. We should have scored goals. You can concede a goal, but we should have made it 2-1 or 3-1. We had a lot of chances, a lot of free kicks and corners, and I think we should have used them better.

“They only had one shot on target and maybe two or three off target, and so if you look at the game 97 minutes outside the goal, I think we were the better team,” he concluded.