10 October 2008
There was a time when thousands would await the national team's return and jubilantly escort the motorcade all the way to a State dinner, yet on Wednesday evening a policeman wouldn't let their bus through an access road back to their hotel.
Bobby Williamson might not know about the two extremes to which Ugandans will go depending on the fortunes of The Cranes, but his assistant Sam Ssimbwa knows about this all too well having been part of the team Ugandans thronged the airport to welcome after 1989's CECAFA heroics in Nairobi.
The other assistant, Jackson Mayanja, missed the 1989 tournament which saw Uganda end a 12-year drought, but experienced both extremes of emotions with the national team over the next decade too.
As coaches, Ssimbwa and Mayanja have only recently bounced back after being unceremoniously booted earlier this year, and the two are well placed to advise Williamson to drum up a siege mentality in the dressing room akin to that successfully used by his predecessor Laszlo Csaba after the Benin debacle.
Such is the fickle nature of football fans that after The Cranes went down 4-1 to Benin earlier in the campaign, several hundred skipped the win over Angola at Namboole a week later, missing out on one of Uganda's most accomplished performances in years.
Now the worry that a few hundred will shun tomorrow's game against Benin is real, but Williamson and his team cannot afford to worry about that, or even the result of the pivotal Angola-Niger clash several hundred miles away.
All that The Cranes have to do is put their every effort into defeating Benin and let the other business take care of itself.
Along with the disappointment should the other result in the group not go their way, will come the satisfaction that they at least met their end of the bargain, as long as they beat Benin.
Besides, like I have said before, there have been stranger things in football than a result for Niger in Angola; imagine then the disappointment if Niger pulled one off hours after The Cranes drew or lost on home soil.
The Cranes therefore can ill-afford to be presumptuous as a win over Benin, the strongest and most consistent team in this group, is no foregone conclusion. Benin will be carrying points from this group into the next, as amatter of fact.
Shutting shop
Like has become the norm for The Cranes at this stage of the qualifiers, it seems only a cricket score will do and the gospel being preached is relentless attack.
However, not even Brazil or Real Madrid can afford to go forward with reckless abandon anymore; no victory is quite complete without steady defending, in fact a solid back four and disciplined team display is the foundation on which all wins are laid these days.
Usually the most reliable of departments for The Cranes, the defence has been a let down in the two most humiliating defeats of the campaign, away to Benin and Niger.
The defeat to Benin went down to absentees and the one to Niger was attributed to the team's ignorance of the mathematics of the group, and a repeat of those collapses on home soil is most unlikely.
Having said that though, Ibra Sekagya and Timothy Batabaire have got to return to the days not so long ago when they played like one of Africa's best partnerships, because only when they show dogged intent to shut out a very potent attack led by Razak Omontoyossi will the rest of the team get the confidence to go goal-hunting.
The defensive duties will have to be replicated by full backs Simeon Masaba and Nestory Kizito, as well as holding midfielder Johnson Bagoole, but in modern football defending is about the unit and not individuals, such that the wide midfielders will have to drop back and the strikers will be asked to harry the oppositions defenders and deep midfielders in possession.
Unless we have run out of time and are desperate to the point of no return, there is no reason why Sekagya and co should abandon sentry and go in search of goals at the defence's expense.
It is of course worthy of notice that the defenders will be playing in front of a different goalkeeper, one of Posnet Omwony or Abel Dhaira but most probably the former, and two-way communication will be paramount.
Secret weapon
In embarrassing some of Africa's top footballing countries here in the past, Uganda has not had to do too much homework about the strengths and weaknesses of the top stars from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Algeria, South Africa and most recently Angola who are household names.
But while the likes of Obafemi Martins, Michael Essien, Sibusiso Zuma and Flavio have tripped on their egos and been frustrated at Namboole before, countries like Benin pose a bigger threat because they don't quite have that calibre of superstar.
It is very obvious that Uganda's footballing fraternity knows little of Benin outside of Nigerian-born striker Omontoyossi, but the former Helsinborgs striker is no stranger having bullied defences at Ghana 2008 and in our group during this campaign, so everyone will know about his physical strength, pace and sharp eye for goal.
The worry therefore is that The Cranes will concentrate on this man-mountain and forget about the other threats, the most deadly of whom is Stephane Sessegnon.
Sessegnon, who operates in the areas behind Omontoyossi, is the form man of Benin who has lit up the French Ligue One with Le Mans before and with PSG. currently Elusive and highly skilled, Sessegnon is capable of wrecking what is left of Uganda's dream and has to be watched by Bagoole, the central defence and the full backs.
Uganda's attack
Again, like is so often the case at crunch time, there is a tendency for The Cranes to look to one man for goals as they have shown in hailing David Obua or blaming Geoffrey Massa in the recent past.
It was as shocking as it was disappointing in the final game of the last campaign against Niger that only Obua seemed to have desire and the guts to shoot on goal, everyone else standing aside to watch the lanky leftie bag a hat-trick that turned out to be one shot of the required target.
Never have goal-scoring responsibilities been more the call of the team than the individual than in one-offs like tomorrow's game.
Having been the most likely source of goals whose absence was deeply felt in Niger, Eugene Sepuuya will find himself carrying the burden of expectation.
It will however be criminal should Geoffrey Serunkuuma and potential subs Caesar Okuhti and Massa not do everything in their power to contribute to the hunt.
The only other man capable of stepping up on the big day is skipper Sekagya, yet if I were anyone of Mike Serumaga, Vincent Kayizzi, Mike Sebalinga or Dan Wagaluka I would be eager to chip in with a goal on the kind of day when heroes are born.
The key to The Cranes attack however will be intelligence.
A quick injection of pace, especially down the wide areas, and an early signal of intent will get the crowd on their side and probably get them the early goal on which thy can build.
If it doesn't happen though, a show of patience and intelligent build-up play will be a must, as opposed to desperate haste and frustration with the crowd getting on their backs rather than behind them.
It doesn't really matter when that first goal comes, it could open the floodgates any time as long as it is not in the very last minute or The Cranes haven't conceded.
And, like I said earlier, it won't even matter if the stadium is not full because the same fans who choose to stay away will rush to Namboole's gates or the team hotel if The Cranes pull off a major miracle.
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