Trust at Olila is everything for Aluka

With her back to goal, Grace Aluka lets a well weighted pass from teammate Patricia Apio roll past her body.
She then turns to have her left foot in control of the ball, takes a look at the position of Hadijah Nalongo in goal, and then lets fly into the top-right corner.

Before this, for 21 minutes, Aluka does not look influential playing as a striker for Olila High School in a highly-billed Fufa Women Super League (FWSL) encounter against UCU Lady Cardinals away in Mukono.

“When defenders know that you are the weapon of your team, they try to cut you out of the game,” Aluka said in a post-match chat after their 1-0 win.

“I just had to keep evading them and eventually I got my chance. By the way, this is my best goal ever because it was the only chance I got in this match.

“I kept escaping from the defenders so that they can forget about me. Eventually that pass came and I looked to see if the keeper had moved,” she adds.

Making the switch
Aluka, who claims she was “born with this football talent,” might not have paid attention to the crowd watching but it included her U-20 national team coach – also her former coach at Kawempe Muslim – Ayub Khalifa, who was in Mukono to grace the launch of Fifa and Fufa’s new league development project.

At club level, the two parted ways in 2020 but the latter kept summoning Aluka to the U-20 national team.
“When I was on the senior national team, we lost some games and I saw players cry. I thought of what would happen if we ever lost matches or trophies at Kawempe.

“That gave me a bit of humility. So it was not very difficult to come here (Olila), where sometimes you go for a game just hoping you can earn a draw, when I needed to change environment,” Aluka, who lost a league title – just once in six seasons – while at Kawempe, says.

Kawempe, with whom Aluka won four top flight league titles, are struggling to score goals this season while their former winger and defender leads the league top scorers’ charts with eight goals in 13 matches.

So it seems like a good time to sound out Khalifa on what he thinks of Aluka’s form.
“You cannot rule her out as one of the best strikers in the league. But for me, it is the improvement and the way she takes her chances. She offers something different from the strikers we usually see,” Khalifa says.
“Aluka is not very fast or swift so she does not drive the ball. But she has the power to finish from the distance so you can trust her to play with her back to goal knowing she will play with others or turn to finish.” 

Needs trust
So did he ever see this from the player who joined his side aged 12 in 2015?
“What we thought was that she was very versatile and could use both legs. However, we played her first as a winger but because at the time we had so many good forwards, we pushed her to defence.

She did well and even when we had some injuries in the U-170 team (to Stella Musibika and Kevin Nakacwa ahead of the first round World Cup qualifiers with Tanzania), we trusted her to come and fill the gap,” Khalifa shares.

Aluka is relishing the role up-front given to her by Olila coach Saddam Pande but has always had a goal in her. 

“She is not playing to fill numbers but because we believe she can be decisive in the final third. She has scored every kind of goal; penalties, freekicks and field goals. She could actually finish as top scorer if she gets at least four more [goals],” Pande says.

This trust and love from coaches is what Aluka thrives on and feeds off.
“You can score goals even from defence. As long as you get the opportunities. My role at Kawempe was different because I was there to create chances from wide for the strikers. But now, I am in the team (Olila) to score goals.

“When I came here, people said I needed to reduce the weight. I don’t know but it’s not the weight playing, it’s experience,” Aluka, who seems slightly leaner than when the U-20s played their World Cup qualifiers last year and in January, says with a hearty laugh that would put off her detractors.

When she played for the senior national team, the Crested Cranes, in 2018 and 2019, coach Faridah Bulega turned to her in dead-ball situations.

Aluka scored against Ethiopia at Cecafa 2018 and delivered a several assists for the Crested Cranes then and at Cosafa 2019. The setpieces looked like a sure weapon for Uganda whose forwards seem to struggle on national duty.

“I am not saying I am specialist but I try to practice those deliveries both at the near and far posts. Sometimes I score, sometimes I don’t. And some other times, I create chances,” Aluka says.

When Khalifa called her to play against Tanzania in 2020, she scored from the distance as Uganda ran away 6-2 aggregate winners in the final qualification round that was cancelled due to the utbreak of the Covid pandemic as they prepared to play Cameroon.

Coping with disappointment

For 2021 and 2022, Aluka has been on the periphery of the U-20 squad – missing the Cecafa U-20 tourney that Uganda lost to Ethiopia. 

And even though she was included in the 47-man provisional squad to prepare for the May 22 to June 2 Cecafa Women Championship, Aluka is not holding her breath for a final mention in the senior team that will play at the July 2-23 Africa Women Cup of Nations (Awcon) in Morocco. 

She would rather be surprised than let hope kill her after coach George Lutalo summoned 17 forwards to camp during Wednesday’s press conference at Fufa House. Aluka, whose name was read in the second section consisting of foreign players, was clearly an afterthought after Lutalo had watched her in Mukono.

“You cannot be in the team forever because there are many kids coming up,” Aluka says.

“So I cannot really tell if I will be in Morocco because it is a question of what the coaches want. I am trying to force myself into their conversations but if they call me, fine. If they don’t, fine.

“But, of course, I am not done with the national team. I am sure that at some point my qualities will be needed and my chance will come.”

This volatile change of fortunes in football has made Aluka “focus on life after the game.”
“I thought to myself that I needed something to show for all the years I have been playing. I left school in 2018 (after her Senior Four at Kawempe) for business and I have been concentrating on art.

“However, for sometime, things did not go well but I am happy now,” Aluka says with a grin. 
She is surely enjoying her life on and off the pitch.

At a glance

Grace Aluka

Date of birth: June 2, 2003
Mother: Stella Aluka
Father: Justin Emong
Clubs: Kawempe Muslim, Olila HS

National Team
Cecafa 2018, Cecafa 2019, Olympic qualifiers 2018, Awcon qualifiers 2018
U-17: 2020 World Cup qualifiers
U-20: 2020 World Cup qualifiers, 2022 World Cup qualifiers

Olila forward Grace Aluka says: 

"My role at Kawempe was different because I was there to create chances from wide for the strikers. But now, I am in the team (Olila) to score goals. When I came here, people said I needed to reduce the weight. I don’t know but it’s not the weight playing, it’s experience.

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