Sserunkuma giving Micho timely selection headache
As certified masters of near-misses, it is hardly surprising that Uganda Cranes own a catalogue of must-win games showing how the team’s profligacy has denied the country qualification time and again.
By far the most famous remains the 0-0 draw with Kenya in 2011 when the team created more than a dozen chances but failed to convert only one, which would have sent Uganda to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon 2012. Dig down the archives and you will open the file of 1993 when Uganda missed a penalty against Rashidi Yekini’s Nigeria that would have left the country within a whisker of Tunisia 94.
Other infamous heartbreaks include the 0-0 stalemate with Rwanda in 2003, the convoluted mathematics of the 2008 qualification campaign and the shoot-out elimination to the then African champions Zambia in 2012 at Namboole. The story here is that Ugandan teams are not famed for being potent in pressure situations. The national team conspires to fold in these situations.
Next week Comoros will be in town and the mathematics is elementary; outscore Comoros and Uganda will be at the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon next year.
The destiny is fully in Uganda’s hands and once again, the country is high on expectations.
The Mujje Tulumbe campaign has rallied the country towards the game and the atmosphere is fever pitch. Given the intensity of the hype, Cranes will almost certainly need cool heads to navigate through the pressure bowel that Namboole will be next Saturday.
And there is not better cool head than Geoffrey Sserunkuma, KCCA FC’s returning striker who has started the season like a possessed man.
Sserunkuma’s staple diet is goals and as many Uganda Premier League defenders will attest, his predatory instinct has never deserted him.
It is a fine move that coach Micho Sredojevic has included him in his preliminary squad for Comoros because on the form he has exhibited in the league, it would have been inexcusable to ignore him.
Strikers are as good as their return in the goals column and Sserunkuma is a man who has made the most cast-iron case to be included in the final team to play Comoros. Yet Sserunkuma’s finishing repertoire always merited consideration for the national team given his level of experience.
Blessed with movement, aerial ability and a natural striker’s intuition, he has been the most talented out-and-out finisher in the Ugandan game for the better part of the last decade.
Geoffrey Massa may have hogged the limelight for his searing pace and decent strike rate for Cranes at Namboole but even he would be the first to admit he is not a finisher in the mould of Sserunkuma.
The KCCA striker is the sort of marksman whose experience, calmness in the box and glorious scoring repertoire could down Comoros on Saturday.Right now Sserunkuma has done everything to force his way into Micho’s thinking. And Micho will be more than happy to have a selection headache of attackers given that Uganda must outscore the opponent to qualify.
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So all of a sudden Stephen Kiprotich has become a bad marathoner overnight because he failed to defend his Olympic gold. What hogwash!?
Kiprotich could well retire today and his place in the history of the sport won’t be tarnished.
Those without a clue on how Kiprotich prepares for the marathons are probably the ones expressing their disappointment.
Here is a Ugandan champion who has to prepare for his biggest races with the énemy’in Kenya, simply because the facilities in his country are not to his desired level.
Already that disadvantages him with his rivals accustomed to him and his strengths and weaknesses.
Kiprotich likewise suffered the misfortune of competing with Kenyan superstar Eliud Kipchoge, whose expertise in the grueling race today is beyond superhuman. His dominance in the marathons is akin to Bolt in the sprints.
Kipchoge burnt the field early and reduced his rivals to competitors for silver and bronze with more than 10kms to the end of the race.
Age is on Kiprotich’s side – he is 27 – and there is nothing to suggest he is over-the-hill. He is four younger than Kipchoge and will be reviewing his Rio de Janeiro performance once he gets done with holiday. With Solomon Mutai 24, the future of marathoners from Uganda is safe.
And Kiprotich is still very much part of the future.
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Basketball champions Oilers this week lost their unbeaten run to KIU, the only team perhaps that could have stopped them in the regular season.
It was a a victory that was celebrated all across the Fuba League considering that Oilers had for so long looked capable of going the entire duration of the season unbeaten.
The City Oil-backed team, who are in high gear preparations for the Africa Club Championship in Tanzania, remain overwhelming favourites to win the leaguye title for the fourth year in succession.
But no one ones how much confidence KIU will derive from that upset and clearly, their playoff duel will be one to whet the appetite.
Little wonder that many see the two sides are shoe-ins to play the NBL finals.
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