Uganda devoid of goal scorers, stadia thinks it can beat Algeria, stage Afcon

Uganda will have its work cut when it takes on Algeria in a 2023 Africa Cup of Nations or Afcon qualifier tomorrow. The Cranes—whose underwhelming tally of four points has them sharing second place with Tanzania—need a win against Group F's runaway leaders to fortify their grip on a berth at the forthcoming Afcon. 

The continental showpiece will be belatedly staged in Ivory Coast early next year. After suffering one embarrassment after another, the Cranes had become the object of withering criticism. A last-gasp victory away to Tanzania in the last fixture—squeezed out with only our second goal of the qualifying campaign—managed, barely, to evoke wistful smiles. 

In fact, if anything, the buildup to Sunday's penultimate 2023 Afcon qualifier has pretty much revealed the evasions that both sustain and threaten Uganda's chances. It is obvious that Milutin 'Micho' Sredojević and his backroom staff are more worried about Algeria than they care to admit. How could they not be? A lethargic display in which the Democratic Republic of the Congo edged past Uganda 1-0 in a midweek trial match took on a sadness that bleeds into hope.

Worse could follow. The ongoing Afcon campaign has particularly drawn attention to the cleverness and the sharpness of the eye of Micho's opposite number in Algeria—Djamel Belmadi. Yet a cursory glance at the annals make the Cranes immediately recognisable as a thorn in the flesh of Algeria's Desert Foxes. Well, at least in contests—exhaustingly tight or otherwise—that play out in Uganda's backyard.

Two contrasting wins engineered by the brilliance of attackers Issa Sekatawa in the early 1980s and Hassan Mubiru in the late 1990s are not about to recede from our collective memory. But while they are remembered with a sentimental fondness, it should not be lost upon us that such David versus Goliath conquests owed less to chance than determination.

Nowadays, besides toiling—unsuccessfully—to produce attackers that can find the onion bag with absurd ease, we cannot even stage our home Afcon fixtures. Whereas Nakivubo Stadium—where Sekatawa and Mubiru struck a telling blow against a Goliath in the shape of Algeria—has in recent times basked in the glory of an ostentatious display of neon lights, the unalloyed fact is Uganda currently has no Caf-certified stadium. Not a single one. 

The palpable lack of state-of-the-art sports infrastructure in the country should be the sum of all fears. As a matter of fact, assurances offered by President Museveni in his latest State of the Nation Address or Sona that his government will throw its weight behind a joint 2027 Afcon bid with Tanzania and Kenya were a few notches beyond terrifying. Those that expect the bid to unfold gracefully with careful consideration given to the inevitable demands are delusional.

In light of the joint 2027 Afcon bid, this column has been persistent in its urging that Uganda first learns to crawl before attempting to walk. We cannot lay claim to delivering a shining light-bulb moment with this joint bid when Caf's homologation process firmly has the red flag up.

It should be made immediately clear that the mixed win-loss record that 'bids' to stage Cecafa championships have previously merited will not cut it. Such an approach—besides lacking gravitational pull—is too scattergun to hit a bullseye on the continental stage. 

The implications of absence of a master plan for improving the moribund sports infrastructure in Uganda are sobering and must galvanise action. Like any high-risk enterprise, this master plan begs of a dash of care and thoughtfulness. It should not be an afterthought as appears to be the case, currently.