Uganda on acid test

Oct 06, 2003

UGANDA’S tattered repute as a football nation, both on and off the pitch, comes under risk when Cranes play Mauritius this weekend.

By Mark Namanya

UGANDA’S tattered repute as a football nation, both on and off the pitch, comes under risk when Cranes play Mauritius this weekend.

The whole nation has not forgotten the manner in which the national team let slip a golden opportunity to qualify for next year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia.

Cranes led Group 13 after a convincing 1-0 win over Ghana’s Black Stars but self-destructed against Rwanda, who later topped.

Worse was still to come.

The Nile Special Super League was tainted by match fixing from the big clubs, forcing the federation to institute an independent inquiry into the scandal.

Preparations for the Mauritius match have not been satisfying and the islanders, ranked 128 in the world, will start with an outside chance for an upset.

Doubts remain on the commitment of senior players like Hassan Mubiru, whose ever-growing ego is killing the talent in him.

If Cranes is going to qualify in this African nations and World Cup encounter, it will need to rout Mauritius at home.

But signs of a humiliation do not seem to be there. Wholesale changes keep transpiring in Cranes allowing little chance of cohesion.

The teams that played Ghana and Rwanda, home and away, are different. In three of the four African Cup group matches, Cranes used three coaches and three different goalkeepers. Yet if there is a position in football where consistency is of utmost importance, it is goal.

Abdu Salim kept goal against Ghana and Posnet Omwony was the man in the sticks in the double header with Rwanda — a first half substitute for injured Ibrahim Mugisha.

Changes on the technical bench have done little to help Uganda’s ambitions.

Paul Hasule set Cranes’ campaign on track, only to be sacked without genuine reason. Argentine Pedro Pablo Pasculli replaced him but left on his own, two weeks later, leaving assistant coach Leo Adraa in charge.

Striker Ekuchu Kasongo, who observers thought was the long term solution to Cranes’ impotence in attack, is trying his luck at professional football.

Adraa has between now and Saturday to mould a squad that will register a comprehensive victory, enough to render the return leg a formality.

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