Africa-Press – Uganda. It was not meant to be like this, but is what it is. Livingston Mbabazi was the man first picked by Micho Sredojevic as the assistant coach of the Uganda Cranes.
But because of Fufa’s new requirement that national team assistant coaches concentrate fully on that, and not clubs, the Arua Hills manager will now focus on the newly-promoted Premier League side.
“It would have been a great chance to work with a great coach like Mbabazi at Cranes but we have been forced to find a coach fully focused and dedicated to the national team,’ Micho told Daily Monitor.
The Serbian tactician spoke as the Cranes started residential camp in Kampala at the weekend ahead of training trips to Jordan and Ethiopia later this week.
Uganda will twice face Syria and later Ethiopia as some of the games to prepare for next month’s World Cup qualifying matches against Kenya and Mali.
But in Moses Basena as Mbabazi’s replacement, Micho has a man who understands him like the back of his palm. The two worked together at SC Villa in the early 2000s, and reunited at the national team toward the end of the Serb’s first stint as Cranes gaffer.
“Basena is a choice of person that has been with us (the technical team) when we took Uganda to Afcon after 39 years and handled Cranes against Egypt (in the qualifiers after the 51-year-old Serbian had quit in 2017),” Micho said.
Basena helped Uganda beat Egypt 1-0 in Kampala in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers after Micho’s departure in 2017 although the Cranes still came short overall.Basena would late take coaching stints in Tanzania and Rwanda.
“Many Ugandan coaches satisfy technical standards to work with. We want to create a situation where all of us work for Uganda,” Micho said.
“Basena ticks all the boxes and I believe that we will cooperate in the best way from technical and managerial aspects.”Rwanda are Uganda’s other group-mates.
At a glance
Uganda Cranes technical team
Head coach
Micho Sredojević
Assistant coach
Moses Basena
Goalkeeping
Fred Kajoba
Performance
Franck Plaine
Analyst
Addis Worku
Team manager
Geoffrey Massa
Physiotherapy
Ivan Ssewanyana
[email protected]
