Our hearts with 'The Uganda Cranes'

The Uganda Cranes

By Nsubuga Francis:

At AfrikaMzuri under our haghtag #BeautifulUganda we want to share with you our readers about whats happening in Uganda. At this very moment its all Uganda Cranes, everywhere and  everyone. The National Jersey is what everyone is expected to be putting on to express our patriotism and passion as we  feature in our first match against Ghana in Africa's biggest soccer tournament, the African Cup of Nations (Afcon).

Today the 17 January 2017, all our hearts and eyes from Uganda will be at our mighty National Soccer team the, Uganda-Cranes or simply ‘The Cranes’ take on Ghana’s Black Stars in the long awaited African Cup of Nations 2017 in Gabon.

Uganda last appeared in the continental tournament in 1978 where the Cranes lost to Ghana at the finals. Ever since then, it’s been a burning desire for Ugandans to see their flag fly high at the tournament. Many times The Cranes has narrowly missed qualifying after heavily competitive encounters.

However the Cranes had appeared in Afcon though its way back. In 1962, we managed the fourth place, 1968, 1974, and 1976 we stopped at group stages and then 1978 where we were second runners upafter being beaten by Ghana 2:0. 

On 3rd September  2016, Belgian side Standard Liege based Farouk Mia netted a single goal against Comoros and the unsurvivable home ground for the Cranes at Namboole and this ended a 38 years thirst for the continent’s biggest tournament.

Coach Micho, Cranes Coach

Under the Serbian coach Milutin Sredojevic nicknamed locally as Micho, we have seen an outstanding improvement in the team’s performance and many big African teams have tested the Cranes wrath and this made the team emerge as second runners for Group D behind Burkina Faso, followed by Botswana and lastly Comoros.

Being the biggest and the only representative from the  Cecafa region, Ugandans are optimistic that The Cranes showcase a good performance in its group though we have been put together in Group D with Egypt, one of our hard sides, Mali and Ghana whom The cranes have encountered more frequently and haven’t had a bad record.

From the camp, news is that all players are in good mood, only waiting for action. A few fans managed to travel to Port Gentile and majority will catch the action from Tv.

Back at home, patriotism seems to ne high as Ugandans are eagerly waiting to see their team fly our National colors high.
Passion for the Uganda Crane has been exhibited by all people, of all colors and nationalities.

Jubillant and passionate Uganda Cranes supporters

As Ugandans, we are so grateful to whoever has contributed to our National Team’s journey from the Sponsors, the media, Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA), the Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Education and Sports, the players, coach and most importantly the fans.

These have stood strong with the team despite all those years of disappointments and losses. They havent lefrt Ugandan football, they havent forsaken The Cranes! They have continued supporting with ethuthiasm.
A BIG THANK YOU 👏👏👏👏👏

We Go, we go; Uganda Cranes we go!

Mujje Tulumbe!