Africa-Press – Uganda. The Queen Cranes confront Senegal in Thieson Saturday for the first leg of their third round Fifa U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifier full of confidence.
Coach Ayub Khalifa is without midfielder Phionah Nabulime as she is sitting her final secondary school examinations but he managed to get Hadijah Nandago back into the set-up before they travelled in the wee hours of Thursday.
“All we can assure our fans is that we shall return victorious,” Khalifa, whose side edged Mozambique 8-0 on aggregate in the previous round, said.
Nandago will be asked to get goals for a squad that is yet to stamp its authority on things. In Mozambique, they won 6-0 and looked like they had goals all over the park. But some complacency set in in the second leg at Fufa Technical Centre, Njeru and they struggled to break down the visitors eventually winning just 2-0.
“We had a test match against Kampala Queens (at MTN Omondi Stadium) and although we did not manage to score, I liked the attitude and application of the girls,” Khalifa said before they departed.
“I am disturbed that we did not score in that game but that is something we shall solve,” he added.
The last time Uganda’s U-20s visited west Africa, they were humiliated in a 5-0 loss, for a 7-1 aggregate defeat, by Ghana in the penultimate qualification round for the 2022 World Cup in Costa Rica.
Uganda will love that the second leg this time is at home but both the Queen Cranes and Senegal are playing for a chance to meet the winner between Ghana and Eswatini in the final qualification round in January next year. The final tournament will be in Colombia in September 2024.
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