Africa-Press – Uganda. A month is really a long time in football.
By mid November, Uganda’s U-20 women national team were answering questions on whether they had started to take their success as a given and for granted.
That was after they lost 3-2 late in their final game of the 2021 Cecafa U-20 Women Championship, at Fufa Technical Centre – Njeru, to Ethiopia.
Suddenly, the team is in back in top gear after beating both South Africa and Tanzania 1-0 in the first leg of the third round of the World Cup qualifiers at St. Mary’s Stadium – Kitende on December 3 and a friendly in Dar-es-Salaam on December 9 respectively.
Coach Ayub Khalifa’s charges take on South Africa again today in the second leg at Dobsonville Stadium in Johannesburg.
He is no stranger to doing the job away from home but most of the success for this group since they were in the U-17 World Cup qualifiers came at home.
The group came together in 2019 and won the Cosafa U-17 Women Championships in Mauritius beating South Africa 2-0 in the final.
Shortly after that, they entered the U-17 World Cup qualifiers; beat Ethiopia 2-0 at home and went away to win 3-1 in the preliminary round.
Then next round started away with Uganda losing 2-1 to Tanzania but wrestled back emphatically to win 5-0 in Lugogo to make the final qualification round that was wiped away by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This U-20 World Cup campaign started with a 7-2 win over Kenya in Nairobi.
Although the 3-1 win in the second leg in Kitende was not as convincing, the job had been done in Nairobi.
Uganda can therefore be said to have done the job away from home against Ethiopia and Kenya.
Khalifa believes only half of the job against South Africa was done in Kitende as the lead still looks narrow and he has urged his forwards to hunt for more goals.
South Africa coach Jabulile Baloyi left Kitende upbeat that her team had not thrown away the tie despite being thin with only four substitutes on the day.
Baloyi should operate with a full squad today and Uganda should expect tests from players who did not travel to Kitende.
[email protected]
For More News And Analysis About Uganda Follow Africa-Press
