The Uganda Cranes are out!

Uganda is out of the World Cup qualifiers!

Joseph Opio:

Uganda 2 Benin 1
Angola 3 Niger 1

CALAMITY stalks Ugandan football like an unrelenting shadow. And again yesterday, it crept up on the Cranes and crushed a nation’s 2010 World Cup dream.

Fate can be cruel in its cheek — a fact re-affirmed last evening as it first raised Uganda’s hopes before bringing them down with a loud thud within a 45-minute spell.

Uganda would have progressed to the next round of the qualifiers had it won against Benin and victory eluded Angola against Niger in Luanda.

Uganda accomplished its brief. But Angola, which had nothing to play for, ensured the Cranes 2-1 win at Namboole would serve nothing more than mere academic interest.

The most incurable among local optimists had prayed Geoffrey Massa’s brace at Namboole would be followed by a Nigerien miracle in Angola.

It was a hope-laden idea that Fate toyed with for 45 minutes — before relegating it to the waste-basket.

See, Niger went into half-time leading Angola 1-0, courtesy of a shock strike from Malam Moussa in the 20th minute.

Ugandans dared to dream, especially with Angola so toothless in the entire first-half.

But sunny Ugandan faces were to reflect despair when Angola restored parity eight minutes into the second half. The equaliser, painfully enough, didn’t come from an Angolan boot, instead arriving as an own goal by Nigerien goalkeeper, Daouda Kassaly.

A draw would still have still proven sufficient for Uganda. But Angolan winger, Gilberto, dictated that whoever held out for such a result perished the thought when he catapulted Angola ahead with a strike 15 minutes later.

Another midfielder, Ze Kalanga then stretched Angola’s lead in the 73rd minute to effectively wreck any hopes of a Nigerien fight-back.

Angola wouldn’t have qualified had they triumphed with an 100-goal margin. Regardless, their 3-1 win proved malicious enough to squander Uganda’s arithmetical chances.

Amnesiac pundits will contend that Uganda’s 2010 World Cup bid was ended in the five-minute spell Angola scored its second and third goals.

But those with more elastic memories will realise that it was the costly defeat away to Niger last month that proved fatal in the end.

The Cranes led for large chunks of that game before succumbing to a 3-1 loss after three minutes of absolute ineptitude.

If only Uganda had clung on for a draw in Niamey...if only Niger had held onto their half-time lead in Angola...if only FIFA had, like CAF, used head-to-head instead of goal difference…..if only “if only” wasn’t such an eternal catch-phrase in Ugandan football.

But as it stands, “if only” remains the most apt two-word combination to define Uganda’s heart-breaking soccer fortunes.

I am heartbroken!