Kenkre FC U-18 Head Coach Akhil Kothari hails morale boosting win

by Kaushal Shukla November 15, 2015

Kenkre FC got off the mark in the Maharashtra Qualifying Zone of the U-18 I-League with a solid 3-0 win over city rivals PIFA Colaba at Cooperage on Saturday evening. Kenkre FC hot the ground running in the game and found themselves 3-0 up within the first forty minutes. PIFA came back hard at Kenkre in the second half, but Kenkre showed great resilience in defence to hold onto their clean sheet.

Kenkre FC U-18 Head Coach Akhil Kothari was delighted with his team’s performance and echoed the team’s joy at getting their first win on the board after three straight losses. “The win has given us a good feeling. We made a good start by scoring three goals in the first half. I felt it was important and built our confidence as we hadn’t scored in the previous games and then we did well to close the victory,” added the young Kenkre FC coach.

Kothari had words of praise for his defenders after he hailed their performance in the game as ‘perfect’ as his side quite efficiently thwarted the PIFA forward line in the second. “I felt the defence today was perfect. Everybody did their job well. With the 3-0 lead they were relaxing sometimes, but I made sure they kept the performance levels up throughout the ninety minutes,” Kothari added.

The young coach made an inspired change as he played midfielder Arfat Ansari upfront and as it turned out, it proved to be a master-stroke from the Kenkre FC gaffer. Kothari stated that he couldn’t have asked for more from his player as according to him, Ansari did what a striker needed to. “Arfat is actually a left sided midfield player. But I wanted someone strong who could hold the ball upfront for us. I felt the decision paid off handsomely as Arfat did what a striker has to and that is score goals. I couldn’t have asked for more from him,” expressed the young coach.

However Akhil Kothari who played as a defender for the Kenkre FC senior team, felt his team needed to build on from this win which did their confidence a world of good, against a Pune FC side, who have been running riot in the group so far. “We would take a lot of confidence and belief from today’s performance, but we to minimize our errors and stick to the tactics for our next game against top teams like Pune FC. We would now go back to the drawing board and work on our errors from today and get back stronger against Pune on Monday,” said the former Kenre FC left back.

After today’s win, Pune FC will be huge challenge for Akhil Kothari’s boys and it will be interesting to see what a win does to Kenkre as they take on the mighty Pune FC at home next week.