Mark Ssali
8 September 2008
opinion
Such is the scandal of Niamey that even the verbose would go mute. Uganda's latest demise against Niger must have surprised even those who say they have long given up on The Cranes, football's perennial bridesmaids.
One does not need to have watched the game to realise Uganda's embarrassingly basic failures against a team that had not been good for a point until Sunday.
How else would you describe the team's failure to play for a point after they had failed to kill off the game with a second goal?
With the hindsight of what had happened previously in Benin, and the general understanding that such late goals as repeatedly conceded by The Cranes are inexcusable at international level, it is not harsh to describe the current national team set-up as a total shambles.
The technical bench was a terrible let down, as were the players all of whom have tremendous experience at this level, with the exception of Tony Mawejje and Caesar Okhuti who were only substitutes on Sunday.
You didn't need to be a maths professor to realise that a draw would have done the qualification campaign a world of good, with a home game to come.
And now it turns out that the calculators are not even necessary this time as the Benin game is rendered all but academic.
The Cranes really are a crying shame.
Gov't should play part
Close to two billion people who had tuned in to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games witnessed the crowning of Kenyan Samuel Wanjiru as marathon king.
With Kenya's flag flying and the national anthem playing, it was obvious that Wanjiru had marketed his country like no amount of specially designed commercial adverts ever could.
For a country like ours which is not industrialised and is no longer a force in commercial agriculture (they must have changed the geography textbooks from my school days), there is everything to gain from the fruits of international sporting success, everything from boosting tourism down to foreign exchange, income, taxes e.t.c.
Our government has got to wake up to the demise of Ugandan sport, from a scandalous showing at the Olympics to the Cranes shambles.
It is not asking too much for government to invest in the setting up of structures to scout and groom talent, to finance the training of local technical men and hiring of truly expert foreign ones, and to bankroll the adequate preparation of competitors and reward of outstanding performers.
Nowhere in the third world will you find sporting success not supported by government, and the gains cannot be quantified.
Nadal, Roger that
There was a lot of sour-graping but plenty of truth too in what Roger Federer had to say about Rafael Nadal going into the US Open.
The former number one said of his successor to the throne that he was about to feel the pressure of being expected to win everything all the time despite what he had already achieved, as if he were not human.
In losing to Andy Murray in a gruelling semi final played over two days, it was evident that Nadal was already paying the price for his success in more ways than one.
There is no denying that the endless hours he has spent on the courts finally caught up with the Spaniard as he ran out of gas, and he admitted as much in the post-match press conference.
But the other problem with being number one that Nadal will have to deal with is that his opponents will do their homework with more dedication now that he is the man to beat.
Having been embarrassed by Nadal on his home court in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, Murray obviously went to the drawing board and returned to beat Nadal at his own game; the top spins and high bouncers, angled backhands and well orchestrated rallies were all too familiar.
Regardless of the outcome of the final, (it was played long after I had written this), Nadal has his work cut out.
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