Prime
Three more Capradossis can turn the Cranes into a beast
ROBERT MADOI
What you need to know:
Desabre is reported to have been actively involved in the process. This is a template that the Cranes should borrow.
The manner in which Elio Capradossi and senior international football draped in Cranes colours recently went hand in glove will be remembered with a sentimental fondness for years to come. Here is why: Never has an enterprise carried little or no unnecessary risk.
Yet such an outcome was not always assured. There was a time in the not-so-distant past that players with a CV saved from ridicule by the fact that they were merely based in Europe contrived to turn in performances that were rarely memorable. The underwhelming appeal of Joel Kitamirike quickly springs to mind.
Then on the books of Chelsea FC, he walked into the Cranes camp in 2004 with Mike Mutebi, the head coach at the time, predicting that the defender would bestride the sport in a way his competitors never come close. Nothing, however, suited Kitamirike's talents perfectly.
Even before his dual citizenship saga slammed the brakes on a maiden international cap, there were doubts about whether what the England-based talent brought to the table was conspicuously absent in the Cranes camp.
A colleague pointed out how Kitamirike laboured mightily to control a few balls that came his way during a training session that was open to the media. I was greeted with a “does this guy really play for Chelsea” look because I have a soft sport for the Blues.
Remarkably, he was a Chelsea player back then. Albeit a bit-part youth player, making his solo senior appearance for the London club during a Uefa Cup match when several senior players opted not to travel to Israel thanks to security concerns.
Since that episode, players of Ugandan heritage invited to audition for a gig with the Cranes have not been blind to the hazards that await them. And we are not talking about the dual citizenship hurdle here. Your columnist vividly remembers another England-based player (name withheld) who attempted to immediately get into the good graces of Muhammad Abbas by giving him an expensive-looking mobile phone with a flap.
The Egyptian coach, who at no single moment took lightly the Cranes reins that were placed in his grasp, was aggressively transparent about how he intended to set out his stall. Scandals were not his indiscretions and thus he turned down the phone in the full glare of journalists.
With good reason, it turned out, because the unnamed player who figured in the lower reaches of English football was woefully off the pace in training. He did not make the matchday squad. Surprise, surprise.
If there is anything to be read out of those unpleasant moments, it is that—taken matter-of-factly—Fufa's scouting department was memorably awful.
The way in which Fufa scouts went about doing the basics cast an unvarnished light on them. Any hard-won gains of convincing Europe-based players to slip into the Cranes strip always seemed to have an air of desperation to them. This as the game of a number of the high profile recruits only came in fits and starts.
And then Capradossi happened. The Italy-based defender barely put a foot wrong during home matches against Botswana and Algeria. Little wonder, the unhesitating answer is that this is a watershed moment for Uganda.
As Sébastien Desabre has shown with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a team can receive a new lease of life if the right call is made when players drilled in foreign academies are being cherry-picked.
Players like French-born goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi; Charles Pickel, the Swiss-born midfield bulwark; and Gédéon Kalulu, the French-born right-back made the DRC look formidable at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations finals in Côte d'Ivoire early this year.
Desabre is reported to have been actively involved in the process. This is a template that the Cranes should borrow. Three more judicious picks to go with Capradossi could easily turn Uganda from an also-ran to a dark horse.
