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Why Uganda Cranes’ 2025 Afcon group isn’t as bad as many think
ROBERT MADOI
What you need to know:
Nigeria, Tunisia and Tanzania are the countries that the Cranes will come up against in the Moroccan cities of Fez and Rabat during this year’s festive period.
The collective moan that greeted this week’s 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) draw suggests that few champagne bottles, if any, were cracked open. Some would argue this was with good reason. Maybe not, your humble columnist would hasten to note. Why? Stay with me, if you will.
Nigeria, Tunisia and Tanzania are the countries that the Cranes will come up against in the Moroccan cities of Fez and Rabat during this year’s festive period.
To be clear, pushover is not a descriptor ascribable to any of the three. Each has a skill set that can trouble Uganda on any day. Yes, dear reader, Tanzania inclusive. And yours truly is not full of a wry admiration for our southern neighbour.
As to whether this is the group of death that many have made it out to be is, in my assessment, highly contestable. As a matter of fact, anyone who arrives at such a conclusion eschews analytical distance in favour of raw and ferocious emotion.
The brutal truth is that it could have been much more unpleasant for Paul Put’s charges. Look closer and you will see that Nigeria, Tunisia and Tanzania were anything but the most formidable sides in their respective pots.
Let us start with Pot 1. The hosts, Morocco, and holders, Ivory Coast, were avoided. Both are a much more frightening prospect when juxtaposed with Nigeria. Ditto Senegal, Egypt and Algeria.
On to Pot 2 then. Basing off current form, Cameroon, Mali, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burkina Faso are bound to pursue their interests with much more vigour than Tunisia.
Lest we forget, the North Africans made heavy weather of emerging from a qualifying group that had Comoros, The Gambia and Madagascar. This is evidently a shadow of the Carthage Eagles side that steamrolled the Cranes at the backend of the 20th century.
Finally, to Pot 4. A toss-up it might be, the feeling that the likes of Mozambique, Comoros, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Botswana are marginally better than Tanzania cannot be faulted.
So should the champagne bottle have been cracked open on Monday night, this column asks. The affirmative answer lies in precisely the reasons outlined above.
The calm knowledge that the Cranes cannot afford to fear their Group C adversaries should put some much-needed wind in their sails.
If Put’s charges respect, not fear, Nigeria, Tunisia and Tanzania, they should match the feat they enjoyed at the 2019 Afcon where they almost effortlessly emerged from a group that had Egypt, the DRC and Zimbabwe.
But for all of this to see the light of day, the Cranes will have to be methodical in their preparations. Adversaries should be studied like a book and their vulnerabilities ruthlessly exploited.
Above all, the Cranes should put in the hard yards against the pair of Nigeria and Tunisia while also swiftly moving to guard against complacency during the tricky fixture against Tanzania.
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There is nothing as exasperating as being a professional and having little or nothing to do with your technical expertise. Sadly, this is a reality that Uganda’s professional players have been forced to face since time immemorial.
This is why the Pearl of Africa Golf Series, the first of whose three legs tees off from February 5-8, should be welcomed with open arms.
The welcome additions to the skeletal calendar of Uganda’s professional players should go a long way in scraping the dust off their derelict golf bags while also putting money in their pockets.
What is more the series builds up to the Uganda Open Golf Championship when Uganda’s 70 professional golfers—three of whom are ladies—vie for their biggest purse in a calendar year.
The series should ensure that our local golfers head to the championship in good touch. Put simply, there is a lot to like about the series. Long may it live.
