12 October 2008
editorial
An ominous sense of deja vu pervades the nation ahead of today's crunch 2010 World Cup/African Nations Cup qualifier between Uganda Cranes and Benin's Squirrels.
The Cranes need a victory by a big margin, and more, just to get into the next phase of the qualifiers. The team's fate is not in its hands, as it has to rely on minnows Niger (ranked 148) to get a result against an Angolan (67) team ranked more than 80 places above them in the Coca Cola Fifa world rankings.
How did we find ourselves in this cul-de-sac? A cavalier attitude and shocking lack of awareness resulted in that unfortunate 3-1 capitulation at the hands of Niger which has complicated the Cranes' task.
Had the Fufa technical bench been aware that a point was good enough, the Cranes would most certainly have got a better result in Niger.
Consider this: At the time the Cranes were leading 1-0, Angola was trailing 1-3. We only had to maintain the status quo or even concede one goal to grab second position in the group which would have made passage into the next phase easier.
The players were not briefed about this, perhaps because no one on the technical committee was fully aware of the result needed in Niamey. That is criminal. Cranes coach Robert Bobby Williamson said as much after the game. "We could have avoided this if the players knew that even a draw was a good result," Williamson said.
A week later, Fufa Chief Executive Officer Charles Masembe was wondering aloud what new Fifa rules that nullified results against bottom teams meant for Cranes chances of qualification.
This shows there are too many people at Fufa House who are not doing their jobs. However, for now we have to draw on the positives. The Cranes must fulfil their side of the bargain and hope for a friendly result in Luanda. After all, little miracles do happen all the time and Angola have already dropped out.
Cranes fans should thus throng the stadium to back the boys as they chase victory. The result notwithstanding, Fufa President Lawrence Mulindwa ought to take a long hard look at his henchmen and send several of them packing.
Due to poor personnel, we seem unable to unshackle ourselves from the malaise that has seen the country miss out on a Nations Cup appearance for 30 uninterrupted years.
We should invest in a proper technical director and detail him to groom talent from the grassroots.
German expatriate Burkhard Pape scoured the country to come up with the team that qualified for the finals in 1972, 1974, 1976 and 1978. We can do it again, but only with the right personnel.
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