Massa seeks to end goal drought

By Fred Kaweesi

2014 World Cup qualifier

Saturday, 4pm

Uganda v Angola

IN football, every striker’s dream is to score in every game. Even when the goals are not that consistent, there must be at least a couple scored over a period of time to make him stand out from the crowd.

Cranes lead striker Geoffrey Massa is much aware of that and it bothers him that since the curtains of the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign were raised, he has not found the target.

Instead, it has been a left back Godfrey Walusimbi and midfielder Tony Mawejje who came to the team’s rescue in the games against Senegal and Liberia.

Emmanuel Okwi scored the all-important goal in the 1-1 draw against Angola in Luanda —a game Massa missed due to injury.

“I desperately wanted to score against Liberia but it didn’t happen although I feel my two goals should not have been disallowed,” the Cyprus based striker pointed.

Against Liberia, Massa had two goals ruled out for offside -a header in the early stages of the game and a belter with his left foot deep into the second half that rattled the inside before flying back into play.

But if his overall contribution in the 1-0 win over the West Africans was a preview of this Saturday’s fixture against Angola, then Massa most definitely looks on his way to ending his World Cup qualifiers’ goal drought.

While the 27-year-old has not yet found the back of the net, his overall form has immensely improved.

“I hope I will be lucky this time against Angola. Of course we will try to continue to work as a team and if we succeed, it won’t matter who scores. I only hope I am lucky with the opportunities I get,” he added soon after regrouping with the rest of the team yesterday.

Coach Micho Sredojevic will spend the next couple of days designing a tactical strategy that will find answers to a couple of weaknesses that Liberia exposed in the team.

The Serbian will also not hesitate reminding his charges on the dangers of reading too much from Uganda’s dominant run over the Southern Africans.

“We need to be careful and forget our past against them,” Micho hinted, referring to Uganda’s overwhelming 3-0 and 3-1 wins over the Black Antelopes in 2008 and 2010 respectively.

“They (Angola) play Portuguese kind of football. I have an idea of the threat they will pose. It’s a different challenge from Liberia. They are a very good team that try to possess, pass the ball extremely fast and utilise the wide areas,” he added.

Among the key issues, Micho will try to review is whether to stick with the same back-four that looked shaky or make adjustments. 

He will review the four-man midfield that started against the Lone Stars and decide whether to play a compact midfield game or utilise the wide areas this time. 

How about the contributions of both Moses Oloya and Martin Mutumba? Should they start or come off the bench? Denis Onyango returns to the first team after serving his one-match suspension.

Although he is an obvious choice in goal, the Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper will still be challenged to prove his fitness. Robert Odongkara will then move to the bench.