The manager of the Uganda National Football Team, Micho Sredojevic, believes his team will make it to AFCON this time around.
Uganda has not played in the main AFCON tournament in the last 37 years. The last time that they had featured was in 1978. Their performance in that tournament was first class as they had reached the final, only to lose to Ghana though.
The qualifying draw for the next AFCON got released yesterday. There are 13 groups out of which Uganda’s group is Group D. The other teams in that group are Comoros Islands, Burkina Faso and Botswana.
If Uganda has to qualify from that group, they will have to end right at the no. 1 position which is hard considering a team like Burkina Faso is already there.
Sredojevic also admitted in his press conference after the release of the draw that most of the people would be backing Burkina Faso to win the group, but, he said his boys would compete fiercely and would leave no stone unturned to move to the tournament proper.
In the words of Sredojevic, “Burkina Faso will definitely be the team to beat in the group. They have been very strong over the last 3-4 years and not only them; Botswana has got a nice balance as well. We have won a couple of friendlies against them recently, but, the friendlies don’t count for much.”
“We can’t take anybody lightly in the group actually. Comoros Islands might not have that big a reputation as a team, but, a lot of their players are playing in different leagues in Europe and you see they pushed Kenya. They are a team on the rise and we will have to be wary of them too.”