Uganda Cranes embarked on their second phase of preparations on Boxing Day and are expected to fly out on New Year’s Day for a friendly in Tunisia.
According to the head coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic, the squad will be trimmed down to 20 players to give space for five more foreign based players to join the camp in Tunisia and later Dubai.
“Massa and Aucho entered full training to make a squad of 24 which we shall work with until Friday. The 24 will be reduced by three players and one goalkeeper,” Micho said.
Education
The coach explains that 24 is a perfect number with 21 players and three goalkeepers because one can divide with 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and easier to make training with two directions.
“One direction is education,” he poses, “we are coming to a national team with players that lack certain things that they skipped in their football education. They have reached a level of playing in the premier league and professionally yet certain things are missing.”
The Serbian rues lack of time remaining for preparations but says he will strike a balance between the lessons and on pitch activities.
“Every training session has to go two directions; educating the players in a very fast way and second is to prepare them for upcoming competition that is the highest in African football. It’s not easy, however, I believe in what we are doing.”