Sunday, July 16
•Rwanda vs Uganda, 4pm
Uganda Women’s National Football team, the Crested Cranes, will be hoping to make amends when they take on Rwanda in the return leg of the 2024 Women’s Olympic Football tournament qualifiers.
Ayub Khalifa’s charges were denied a sweet first leg advantage after a 3-3 draw with Rwanda in a game held at Pele Stadium in Kigali on Wednesday.
The Crested Cranes, despite trailing at half-an-hour mark, twice threw a way a lead to leave this East African derby on the wire ahead of the return leg.
Shakira Nyanigahirwa, Hasifah Nassuna and Fazila Ikwaput were all on the score-sheet on the day.
But the game was highlighted by the poor mistakes especially from the defence, notably Aisha Nantongo’s hauler that allowed Usanase Zawadi to bundle in the equalizer with four minutes to full-time.
And Ayub Khalifa has revealed that they have worked on their mistakes ahead of Sunday’s game.
“We have had enough training, tried to rectify our mistakes. And as you saw, most of problems were in defence in the first leg and that has been our area of concern,” Khalifa said.
The task at hand for the Crested Cranes is to win the game if they are to progress to the next stage.
They will need to be more clinical, and also pray that the defence turns up on their best day at the Kigali Pele Stadium.
On Wednesday, they dominated for the best of the game, but lacked that cutting edge in front of goal, against a Rwandan side that looked to be an improved team.
It is said that the away goals rule doesn’t apply at this stage – But the Crested Cranes will have to leave that aside and focus on winning the encounter.
The winner on aggregate between Uganda and Rwanda will face Cameroon, who received a bye at this stage.
It’s strong to note that these qualifiers aim to determine the two teams that will represent Africa at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
