The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Few days ago the Uganda Cranes embarked on preparations ahead of the forthcoming TotalEnergies African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2022. to take place in Algeria.
The team starts preparations three months after seeing off Tanzania 4-0 on aggregate to qualify for their sixth edition of the Championship. The Uganda Cranes featured in the previous CHAN tournaments in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.
The CHAN tournament is played between Africa’s best national teams, but exclusively using players who are currently competing in domestic Leagues and have qualified to compete in the current season.
But, despite perfecting a routine qualification, Uganda Cranes has fallen short of expectations in the final tournaments. To be more specific, Uganda has never advanced past the group stage in any tournament in which they have competed.
The team has had dismal record in all their previous appearances, scoring only eleven goals and conceding 23, which raises concerns ahead of their sixth edition. Uganda is in group B alongside giants Senegal, Ivory Coast and DR Congo
For the last edition, Uganda exited the previous tournament with just one point after losing to Morocco 5-2 in the final Group C game. In the other two group games, the team drew with Rwanda 0-0 and fell to Togo 2-1.
Therefore, given the unsatisfactory statistics from the last editions of the championship, Coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic and his players face a difficult task in the next few days to assemble a competitive team that can defy the odds to at least reach the knockout stage for the championship.
But Micho appears to be cognizant of the enormous task ahead of him and believes his team has learned from prior tournaments, prompting him to believe that the team is ready to punch above it’s weight.
“We believe that history is a teacher of life; we have learned from past experiences where we didn’t succeed to get enough points to progress and now we want to learn from the past, we want to work very hard and have unity of purpose,” says Sredojevic.
This will be Sredojevic’s third edition of the CHAN tournament as Uganda Cranes head Coach having guided the team in the 2014 edition and the 2016 edition of the championship.
While announcing the provisional squad, the head coach gave priority to the Vipers SC team which contributed 12 players on the provisional squad, but most notably, he left out the three leading scorers of the domestic league, including Nelson Senkatuuka of Bright Stars, Fred Amaku of Maroons, and Yunus Sentamu.
Although he later summoned Senkatuuka to join the team, Amaku still failed to make his way, while Seredojevic explained that Sentamu was not in good shape to represent the country which also brings worries about Uganda’s preparedness offensively which has long threatened Uganda’s progress in international competitions.
Regarding the tournament’s preparations, Sredojevic said after having a couple of training sessions on home soil, the team will depart for Tunisia to camp and play some friendly matches before the final tournament in Algeria. He believes that by doing this, the players will have enough time to practice as a unit.
When this reporter visited the team’s training session on Friday at the MTN Omondi stadium, all players were in attendance and took part in the morning training session except forward Milton Karisa who watched the training session from the sidelines. “It is a minor muscle challenge but I will be fine,” Karisa he told this reporter.
One of the senior goalkeepers on the team Nafian Alionzi told URN that they are working hard as goalkeepers.
His colleague James Begisa who plays as a right back equally confesses that they are aware of the threat of conceding many goals but he is equally convinced that they are working hard to organize themselves defensively.
“As a defender am aware that we have been conceding goals, but even the coaches know it and they are working on it and I don’t think we shall continue conceding many goals,” he added.
The CHAN 2023 tournament was initially slated for 10 July to 1 August 2022, but the African Soccer governing body- CAF rescheduled it to January 2023, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Regardless of the weather, the grind never stops.
.@UgandaCranes braved the morning rain and had a training session on Friday at Phillip Omondi Stadium, Lugogo. pic.twitter.com/xH6EzxxqLu
— FUFA (@OfficialFUFA) December 23, 2022
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