Uganda take on Rwanda in crucial World Cup qualifier
What you need to know:
Uganda enter today’s crucial 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifying match against hosts Rwanda at Kigali Stadium with odds towering over them.
However, they also come into it with the consoling knowledge that the Cranes are favourites in this region.
But dominant in Cecafa as Uganda may have been over the years, they are still looking for their first-ever victory over the Amavubi Stars in Rwanda, with the hosts having triumphed five out of 10 times the two have faced off there.
The Cranes also come into this having failed to score a competitive goal at this level, bar the three at Chan finals - where they conceded seven - for close to a year.
Urgent need for goals
In qualifying matches of this magnitude, Uganda last saw the net last November when they scraped past South Sudan 1-0 in Kitende.
Uganda have either drawn or lost every match since then, failed to qualify to next year’s Afcon finals, and are still looking for their first goal in the World Cup qualifiers having fired blanks in their opening draws against Kenya and Mali.
But Cranes coach, also a former boss with Rwanda’s Amavubi Stars, Micho Sredojevic, is a confident man. He has since made some changes in the personnel employed in the two opening matches.
Reinforcements, optimism
Skipper Emmanuel Okwi, who is struggling for fitness because of having no club, wing back Joseph Ochaya, striker Derrick Nsibambi are some of the players he has left out of this one.
Defender Timothy Awany, midfielder Taddeo Lwanga and striker Fahad Bayo, too, are either just returning from injury or have been kept by travel restrictions.
And with some experience in the middle of the park, anchored by stand-in captain Khalid Aucho, and youthfulness in attack, Micho believes they could be good for six points over the two matches, starting with three today.
“I believe that we have what it takes to get the performance and result,” Micho assured the nation before the team departed Kampala for Kigali on Tuesday.
“The team is in transition,” he added, “it has always been that the Uganda Cranes, since 2005/6, had more professional than locally based players but now it’s vice versa.”
Homegrown talents
A massive 16 out of the 25 players in the squad to face Rwanda play in the local league, while only Isaac Muleme, Timothy Awany, Mustafa Kizza and Fahad Bayo feature outside the continent. The Amavubi have players plying their trade in France, Sweden, Portugal and Armenia, but majority are also home based.
“The maturity and seniority of senior players, use of fresh blood and the desire by young players to succeed is a balanced formula that we want to use.”
With the sharpness of in-form striker Yunus Sentamu and towering Bayo giving Micho some good selection headache, the 51-year-old has enough to pick from. What is left is whether they will seize the opportunity.
Speaking about his friend and former colleague with the Rwanda national team, coach Vincent Mashami, Micho displayed respect for the Amavubi tactician.
“I have respect for coach Vincent Mashami and Rwanda as a national team,” said the Serb, “the players too, of which per cent I gave the first opportunity to play at national level.
“I know their players. I know what they think but instead of being proud of what I know about them, I would like in the elements of theoretical awareness to present to our players points of vulnerability and sources of danger to close because a perfect team doesn’t exist.
“I respect him as my student and I want to show that the professor has not forgotten his teachings.” Jacques Bayisenge and danger man Meddie Kagere, a man born and bred in Uganda before swapping nationality for Rwanda, are some of the figures likely to cause Uganda trouble. More Ugandan-born and bred players including Denis Rukundo, Samuel Kato and Jamil Kalisa.
