UFL: De­­­fender grabs hat-trick as Muni beat UNiK at Kisubi

Muni University defender-turned-striker Alfred Egabile grabbed a hat-trick as his side beat the University of Kisubi (UNiK) 3-2 in Kisubi, to register their first win in this year’s Pepsi University Football League.

Deployed for the first time as a makeshift striker because of the team’s thin squad at the moment, Egabile alone should have scored more against a lethargic Kisubi side who despite falling to a second-minute Egabile's strike, finished the first half on top with a 2-1 lead, in the Group B fixture.

But they wobbled in the second half as the central defender, Agabile netted two more goals in the 47 and 67th minutes to condemn UNiK to their fourth loss of the campaign. Frank Tumusiime and Davis Kanyola scored UNiK’s goals.

Alfred Egabile of Muni University grabbed a hat-trick against UNiK

Despite avenging the 3-1 loss to the same opponents in the reverse fixture, and registering their first win from five matches, Muni and UNiK both on three points cannot qualify for the quarter-finals with each left with a match in the preliminaries.

Makerere University Business School that visits Nkumba on Thursday in Entebbe are the two sides that will make the knockouts from the group.

Despite notching the hat-trick Egabile was guilty of missing several scoring chances (4 in the first half) but redeemed himself in the second although his teammates; Adrian Nkwanga and Caleb Mangusho also missed easy chances.

“I’m very happy and excited about this hat-trick because it came in the match, we got our first points. We worked hard to come from behind to win. We have had many challenges with many of our colleagues engaged in exams, so we couldn’t train as a team because others are doing internship and school practice,” Egabile noted.

Muni Coach Gilbert Alumadri said he had been yearning for such a performance from his side and was desperate to bow out with at least a point.

Isaac Kayongo (left) of UNiK shields off Caleb Mangusho of Muni during a University Football League match at Kisubi

“Our major problem has been scoring, so I had to risk and gamble turning my defender into a striker because we have so many defenders and yet the other strikers are away. The win is very important for me and the team and we can now build on this to win our last match as well,” Alumadri stated.

UNiK coach Louis Kizito was lost for words and described the match as one of the worst he has ever seen from a home team in his short coaching career.

“It looked really ugly because the players couldn’t implement the simple instructions I gave them. We were leading but we continued taking unnecessary risks and we ended up conceding and losing.

“We now have to go back to the drawing board and rebuild. I don’t think with this kind of display, this is the right set of players for us; we have to recruit better players from football-playing schools,” Kizito stated.

On Thursday Nkumba University hosts MUBS in another Group B mouthwatering encounter in Nkumba.

Fresh from winning a silver medal in the FASU games in Nairobi, MUBS lead the group with 12 points and are yet to concede a goal while the hosts are in the second position on 9pts.

“We have so far lost one game in the tournament and it was against MUBS but we have managed to keep ourselves in the race by winning all the other games,” Nkumba coach Sulaiman Bbosa said.