Africa-Press – Uganda. Uganda’s U-20 women football team travel to Cape Coast today for the second leg of their fourth round World Cup qualifier against Ghana on Saturday.
Uganda trail by a goal after their 2-1 home loss to the Black Princesses a fortnight ago at St. Mary’s Stadium – Kitende and will look to win by at least two goals to advance.
A 1-0 win still eliminates Uganda on away-goal rule. A 2-1 win pushes the game to penalty-shootouts while a win by just a goal only returns the away goal rule favour to Uganda they score at least thrice.
Coach Ayub Khalifa insists that the job against the five-time U-20 World Cup participants Ghana is surmountable but the wasteful Uganda have scored just three goals in their last four matches.
Hadijah Nandago scored the lone goal in the third round double header against South Africa but also had another in a friendly with Tanzania played in between.
Better competition
Then captain Fauzia Najjemba converted a late penalty to give Uganda a fighting chance against Ghana.
“I am having sleepless nights about how we shall score goals,” Khalifa admitted recently.
“And it is not that we do not create chances, we just fail to convert them.”
Khalifa got this group together in 2019 at the U-17 level. In 14 matches, they scored 85 goals conceding just six.
There was promise of continued free-scoring football when they graduated to U-20 level as they swept away Kenya 10-3 on aggregate in the second round of this qualification campaign.
The form was taken into the first matches of the Cecafa U-20 Women Championship hosted at Fufa Technical Centre – Njeru as they steamrollered Burundi 5-1 and Djibouti 13-0.
But after that they laboured to a 2-0 over Eretria and a 1-0 win over a highly rated Tanzania.
The 3-2 loss to Ethiopia in the decisive match of the round-robin tournament was at the time seen as a defensive concern.
But with the benefit of hindsight, the drastic reduction of goals in the aforementioned third and fourth round qualifiers is a concern.
Khalifa believes “the countries we are playing now are more competitive and of better quality. But we must find a way around them.”
Dilemma
In Kitende, he missed Cyprus-based striker Juliet Nalukenge as she reported sick to camp but while she quickly returned to training, she was replaced on sick bed by winger Margaret Kunihira.
Shamirah Nalugya, who started on the bench against Ghana in Kitende after missing the South Africa ties, could get straight into the lineup on the right flank rather than her favoured position as team playmaker.
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