Kwasi leaves behind unfinished business

KAMPALA. The one-year contract granted to departed Under-17 and Under-20 coach Fabin Samuel Kwasi by Fufa back on March 20 to breathe new life into Ugandan grassroots football said it all it - was a costly gamble.
Many at Fufa House that sunny morning were convinced the experienced Ghanaian was primarily here to oversee the Afcon Under-17 tourney in Tanzania - and he would head back when it failed or get a bumper contract if he succeeded at progressing the Cubs to their maiden World Cup finals.

Most would feel vindicated after Fufa and Kwasi parted ways on Wednesday night in what the federation termed as ‘mutual consent’.
‘Fufa is happy with the work done by Mr. Kwasi in the period he has been in Uganda. However a request by the coach to go and handle family matters back home thus not able to continue with the job, saw the Executive consent to his request’, their statement read in part.
When all the dust has settled, the Cubs will have lost one of the most sought after youth talent coach on the continent as Fufa Youth Development Officer Bashir Mutyaba, who has been closely working with Kwasi, acknowledges.

“He knew a lot of football. He knew how to stimulate the young talent. We shall miss him but that will also depend on who succeeds him,” Mutyaba told Daily Monitor yesterday. In only 62 days at the helm of the most critical stage in football development, Kwasi had dragged Cubs to near World Cup qualification in Tanzania on a three-week notice, holding Nigeria, beating Tanzania and narrowly losing to Angola. He had increased the fitness levels of the players with his personally paid coach (Derrick Owusu) and spent two weeks in the trenches of Jinja selecting the best 20 players ‘that hold the future of Ugandan football’ from the Copa schools tourney.

“Kwasi gave me the list and we shall consider it.We were just unlucky in Tanzania because he had changed the players’ mindset with his father figure, talked to each one on one and above all improved their fitness and focus,” Mutyaba added.
From changing the players’ diet and eating time, fitness, Kwasi tried his hand at reverting Uganda young players back to the famed 4-4-2 system so coveted in West Africa but the time constraint couldn’t allow him.

“He tried the 4-4-2 system against Angola and we lost 1-0. He went for the usual 4-3-3 and we beat Tanzania 3-0 and held Nigeria to a 1-1 draw. I have no doubt he would have done a meticulous job for youth football if he had got time,” Mutyaba stressed. As the 60-year old former Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak coach who led Ghana to the Fifa U17 World Cup in India in 2017,he leaves behind questions like; did Fufa hire him like a mercenary for U-17 Afcon? Can deputy Jackson Magera take on from where he left? Is youth football taken as a priority and who was supposed to pay him?

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