THURSDAY RESULTS
Uganda Cranes 0 – 0 Harambee Stars
Rwanda 0 – 3 Mali
It is end of the road for the Uganda Cranes in the Fifa 2022 World Cup journey. The Cranes’ hopes of playing in the 2022 Fifa World Cup finals have harshly been blown apart after failing to beat the Harambe Stars of Kenya today, November 11 in Kampala.
They drew settled for a goalless draw at St Mary’s stadium, Kitende while Mali, their main rivals in Group E of the qualifiers, have thrashed Rwanda 3-0 in Kigali.
These results mean Mali have already won Group on 13 points, and with a game to spare. The Cranes have nine points and, irrespective of the outcome of Sunday’s game against Mali, they cannot displace the West Africans from the summit.
After failing to win at Kitende, Ugandan football fans had faint hopes hinged on Rwanda upsetting Mali in a game that kicked off two hours later in Kigali. However, Rwanda were reduced to 10 men just after eight minutes when Djihad Bizimana was sent off for foul play.
And after the Belgium-based defender walked off the pitch in disgrace, Rwandan defence caved in as they conceded three goals.
Mali now advances into the final stage of the two-legged matches through which 10 group winners will be drawn against each other. Five winners will represent Africa at the World Cup finals in Qatar next year.
Basically, Coach Micho will take his Cranes’ side to Conakry to play Mali in a formality game on Sunday. It will be a good starting point for the Serbian tactician as well to start afresh in building a new team and strategy for the next qualifiers, especially for the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) 2023 campaign.
One sticking issue about this failed 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign is Cranes failure to score goals and win games. For instance in five games, they scored only two goals!