Poor competition big factor in league decay
Nov 04, 2004
WHILE several reasons are floated for the failure of Uganda Cranes to make a mark on the continental scene, one factor that is often overlooked is the poor state of competition in the national football league and the training of local strikers.
By Abdallah Mubiru
WHILE several reasons are floated for the failure of Uganda Cranes to make a mark on the continental scene, one factor that is often overlooked is the poor state of competition in the national football league and the training of local strikers.
The just concluded Top Radio Super League is now clearly divided into four categories. The the top four who attract all the crowds — SC Villa, KCC, Express and URA; the middle group who once in a while cause an upset, and are best called occasional giant killers, Police, Simba, Kinyara and Masaka.
There is a third group that battle relegation all season like Ggaba United, Mityana Utoda, Top Tv and Iganga TC. They have an average of 30 points. The rest, Mbale Heroes, Ruhinda, Old Timers and Moyo could only average 20 points.
The top four teams scored 186 goals in 120 matches, which is a paltry average of 1.55 goals per game, not enough to attract crowds to any game especially since we know that football is won by scoring goals, and entertaining football, is about attacking and scoring goals.
Little wonder that Uganda's top scorer has only eleven goals. The man who achieved the feat was Hesborn Mundia of Kinyara. He joins only two others who managed double figures: Robert Sentongo (10) and David Kiwanuka (10)
Defences in the league had nothing to brag about, but finding the net remained hard with Hassan Mubiru (9), Godfrey Ssali (9) and Geoffrey Serunkuuma (9) among the country's top six.
Most teams in the league use double strikers with the exception of Villa and KCC who have some times used a ‘target man’.
The burden of scoring in the Ugandan league going by the results, is put on the double strikers or the lone striker so even those without the true striker's instinct, are turned into forwards.
The league seems to lack natural target men. A target man is expected to stay around the penalty area, hold on to the ball for others to join them.
Do we have a natural poacher among our top scorers? A poacher is a player who takes away chances especially in the six yard box like Issa Sekatawa used to do.
Of all the leading scorers in the just concluded league, only Sentongo of Simba can play as a double striker because he started his career as a winger.
Mubiru is arguably the leading striker in the country but, a look at his history shows that he is not supposed to play as a target man or double striker but plays better in the hole behind a target man.
Remember the Mu-Mu attack in Villa where Andrew Mukasa was sitting around the penalty area and Mubiru spinning off.
But the most important responsibility for a any centre forward with out dividing them into target man, double strikers and so on is to score goals.
Is it an accident that the Cranes have scored only two goals in the 2006 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers? Both of them are from set pieces — one by a winger and another by a defender.
Football analysts and observers must have noticed that the biggest percentage of goals scored in the league are mainly because of poor and disorganised defending not that the attacking approach is good.
One answer to why Cranes has struggled to repeat their 1978 feat of reaching an African Nations Cup final in Ghana, could lie in the training our strikers are having and the goal drought which is evidence of the malady.
WHILE several reasons are floated for the failure of Uganda Cranes to make a mark on the continental scene, one factor that is often overlooked is the poor state of competition in the national football league and the training of local strikers.
The just concluded Top Radio Super League is now clearly divided into four categories. The the top four who attract all the crowds — SC Villa, KCC, Express and URA; the middle group who once in a while cause an upset, and are best called occasional giant killers, Police, Simba, Kinyara and Masaka.
There is a third group that battle relegation all season like Ggaba United, Mityana Utoda, Top Tv and Iganga TC. They have an average of 30 points. The rest, Mbale Heroes, Ruhinda, Old Timers and Moyo could only average 20 points.
The top four teams scored 186 goals in 120 matches, which is a paltry average of 1.55 goals per game, not enough to attract crowds to any game especially since we know that football is won by scoring goals, and entertaining football, is about attacking and scoring goals.
Little wonder that Uganda's top scorer has only eleven goals. The man who achieved the feat was Hesborn Mundia of Kinyara. He joins only two others who managed double figures: Robert Sentongo (10) and David Kiwanuka (10)
Defences in the league had nothing to brag about, but finding the net remained hard with Hassan Mubiru (9), Godfrey Ssali (9) and Geoffrey Serunkuuma (9) among the country's top six.
Most teams in the league use double strikers with the exception of Villa and KCC who have some times used a ‘target man’.
The burden of scoring in the Ugandan league going by the results, is put on the double strikers or the lone striker so even those without the true striker's instinct, are turned into forwards.
The league seems to lack natural target men. A target man is expected to stay around the penalty area, hold on to the ball for others to join them.
Do we have a natural poacher among our top scorers? A poacher is a player who takes away chances especially in the six yard box like Issa Sekatawa used to do.
Of all the leading scorers in the just concluded league, only Sentongo of Simba can play as a double striker because he started his career as a winger.
Mubiru is arguably the leading striker in the country but, a look at his history shows that he is not supposed to play as a target man or double striker but plays better in the hole behind a target man.
Remember the Mu-Mu attack in Villa where Andrew Mukasa was sitting around the penalty area and Mubiru spinning off.
But the most important responsibility for a any centre forward with out dividing them into target man, double strikers and so on is to score goals.
Is it an accident that the Cranes have scored only two goals in the 2006 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers? Both of them are from set pieces — one by a winger and another by a defender.
Football analysts and observers must have noticed that the biggest percentage of goals scored in the league are mainly because of poor and disorganised defending not that the attacking approach is good.
One answer to why Cranes has struggled to repeat their 1978 feat of reaching an African Nations Cup final in Ghana, could lie in the training our strikers are having and the goal drought which is evidence of the malady.