The Sand Cranes, Uganda’s national beach soccer team, will compete alongside Tanzania in the upcoming Council of Southern African Football Associations-COSAFA Beach Soccer Tournament, which will take place in Durban, South Africa, from September 25th to October 1st, 2022.
The draws conducted today put the two CECAFA teams in Pool B alongside Egypt and Mauritius. The tournament will have eight teams. Group A consists of Mozambique, Senegal, and Seychelles, and hosts South Africa.
Salim Muwonge, head coach of the Sand Cranes, who is already at the FUFA Technical Center in Njeru with his team, said he is aware of the task ahead of his team after the draws placed them against two teams (Egypt and Mauritius) that had already qualified for the Beach Soccer AFCON.
Uganda is using the COSAFA tournament to prepare for the 2022 Beach Soccer African Cup of Nations. The Cranes qualified for the Beach Soccer AFCON after beating the Comoros in the second leg of the Beach Soccer AFCON qualifiers last month.
Uganda qualified for the biggest beach soccer tournament on the African continent for the second year in a row. In 2021, Senegal hosted the first tournament Uganda played in.
The Sand Cranes want to do better than in the last championship, when they came in fourth place after losing to Mozambique in the semifinals and Morocco in the finals.
Meanwhile, the Sand Cranes will meet their opponents in the group stage of the 2022 Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations on Friday, CAF has announced. The official draw for the competition, which will feature eight teams divided into two groups of four teams each, will take place in Vilankulo Town-Maputo in Mozambique.