By Andrew Mwanguhya
Thursday, January 23 2014
IN SUMMARY
No doubt some positives were realised at Chan and Cranes coach Micho Sredojevic will be credited for putting faith in the little-known Yunus Sentamu.
Uganda Cranes and Cricket Cranes travails at Chan and ICC WC Qualifiers stark reminder that short-termism can achieve only as much, if any.
It’s been quite a month for Ugandan Sport - from hockey, through cricket innings to football. Perhaps only the 2-1 opening day Uganda Cranes victory over Burkina Faso stirred some positive adrenalin.
The Cranes went on to draw goalless their next game against Zimbabwe at the home-based players African Nations Championship (Chan) before succumbing to the more technically blessed Moroccans 3-1 and out of the competition held in South Africa.
Cricket Cranes, the national senior men’s team, were – meanwhile – the other part of the world, maintaining consistency but on a different pedestal. Coach Johan Rudolph’s side lost all their four matches at the ongoing ICC 2015 World Cup qualifiers in New Zealand - batting again their Achilles heel, and will now seek salvation in the playoffs.
On to Lugogo, where Uganda was hosting the 2014 Africa Club Hockey Championships after beating off neighbours Kenya, only the ladies team Weatherhead could make the podium, claiming bronze.
We talk of some disciplines improving locally only to discover our limits when we cross the border for serious continental - even global - assignments.
No doubt some positives were realised at Chan and Cranes coach Micho Sredojevic will be credited for putting faith in the little-known Yunus Sentamu.
He believed in the boy and the Vipers young striker never disappointed. It was not just about the three goals he scored, it’s his awareness and football brain that picks him out as something. With a good coach, Sentamu can only get better.
Which brings us to the question - do most Ugandan coaches really make the cut? While Cranes beat Burkina Faso, their off the ball movement and passing was questionable against Zimbabwe before it turned fictional against Morocco.
Those are basics serious footballing nations teach kids at a younger age. But lack of structures for such here means you can only have half baked material with an occasional Sentamu every now and then sprouting. Uganda Cricket Association (UCA), for example, were doing well with schools’ cricket until recently when they put most of their focus and resources onto the senior men’s national team.
You would understand them because if the national team is doing well and say, win their playoff against Canada or Scotland on Sunday, they will stay in Division II.
That would see Uganda continue receiving the high performance grant from the ICC of $350,000 (Shs876m) until 2017, and the reverse is true.
But you see we cannot make our national teams the Alfa and Omega. Development for schools cricket is paramount if you are to continue servicing the national team. That is the same mistake Fufa have done over years, focusing all their energies on the Cranes – even as the topflight league’s soul is painfully broken right in the middle.
Similar for hockey. Just early last year, infighting saw four topflight clubs petition the National Council of Sports (NCS) challenging the re-election of the federation’s chairman Dunstan Nsubuga among other grievances.
As a result, the league saw no action and these are the same people who expected to match onto the pitch and challenge other countries with active and strong leagues. The earlier we acknowledge that there is no shortcut to success the better.
Cranes shouldn’t hide behind Bafana Bafana’s failure
There has been a slightly weighty argument that having all the necessary facilities does not guarantee you success thanks to “bunch of losers,” in South African Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s words.
