Ugandan football ought to find lasting solution to persistent goal-scoring problems at the big time

With four matchdays played in the 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifying campaign, Uganda remains in the frame for a ticket to Qatar. 

Next month, the Cranes entertain the old enemy – Kenya – in Kitende before locking horns with Mali on neutral territory. 

Cranes players will presumably head into the homestretch safe in the knowledge that victory in both fixtures will bring Uganda in the orbit of prominence.

The Cranes will certainly be spoken about in the revered tones reserved for African football’s aristocrats if they advance to the final qualifying round. The final hurdle on the winding road to Qatar 2022 will see ten group winners from the current penultimate qualifying round square off in five home-and-away ties to decide Africa’s World Cup representatives.

Senegal and Morocco, whose presence at Qatar 2022 seems not just possible but perhaps inevitable, are already through to the final qualifying round. Uganda can only join them if it manages to overhaul the two-point buffer Mali currently enjoys atop Group E. 

There is another route to the final hurdle. The calculus of gnawing at a five-goal deficit is, however, a genuine head-scratcher. It was the subject of fraught discussion after a section of Cranes fans wasn’t swept up by the sea of excitement around identical 1-0 wins over Rwanda.

Those wins – coming as they did on the back of successive goalless draws away to Kenya and at home to Mali – were just about tolerable. They nevertheless underscored the fact that the Cranes have evolved only negligibly in their abilities to score goals. That both goals have come via set-pieces highlights a palpable dearth of creativity. Just to be clear, this is a deficiency that predates current Cranes head coach, Micho Sredojevic.

During the botched qualifying campaign for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals, largely overseen by Johnny McKinstry, Uganda managed – wait for it – three goals in six matches. That the grim statistic was mustered after striking back as best the Cranes could against makeweights like South Sudan and Malawi is a damning indictment.

Uganda’s goal-scoring problems are almost inconceivable in their scope. Even under the stewardship of Sebastien Desabre, whose attack-minded approach had in one manner or another been established, scoring goals was an area in which observers illuminated Uganda’s inadequacies. 

Pared to its most elemental dimension, the single Afcon qualifying campaign the Frenchman oversaw yielded a goals-per-game ratio of just, er, one. The return can arguably be construed as drearily routine since Uganda faced the likes of Cape Verde, Tanzania and Lesotho.

Of course, this is a tad too harsh, especially when the doubleheader against Lesotho – that gushed out five well-worked goals – is taken in isolation. Further proof that the Cranes under Desabre were hardly passive recipients came at the Afcon finals where they scored in all but two of their four fixtures. 

And the blank drawn against hosts Egypt and Senegal was not for want of trying. That said; only with great difficulty was Desabre able eventually to extricate the Cranes from goal-scoring travails following a training camp in Niger.

It therefore invariably follows that we address the root cause of what looks like – and is – an age-old problem. It is instructive to note that we can only change if we question. There is a lot of detail to tease from our goal droughts. They should prompt uncomfortable questions about a coaching approach at club level that is dedicated to undercutting the competition albeit via passivity.

The futility of such an approach has rarely occurred to any coach. World Cup or Afcon qualification is, however, not a league table. Goals will always gain wider currency at the big time. It’s about time we conditioned coaches and players that figure in Ugandan club football’s pyramid to appreciate this fact.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @robertmadoi