Former Cranes and SC Villa defender Arthur Byasiima has said Ugandan players must forget about witchcraft and play football. Byasiima, who left for the US in 1999, told The Monitor yesterday on phone from his base in Alabama that he was not shocked to hear that some of the team members were taken up by belief in juju.
"During our playing days in the local league, many players used to believe a lot in this witchcraft thing.
Others kept saying they were being bewitched by fellow players who wanted to take-up their numbers on the team," said Byasiima who was part of the squad when The Cranes defeated Rwanda in 1998.
The former utility player, who graduated last month with a BSc degree in Economics from Alabama University, said many of the Ugandan players in the US were so angered that the national team lost to Rwanda because they got disoriented by belief in witchcraft. "How does Rwanda beat us? We have always been better than them in football." Byasiima wondered aloud.
He said the team can still go back to the drawing board and defeat Ghana.
Meanwhile, the Cranes resumed training yesterday morning at Namboole Stadium with tactician Pedro Pablo Pasculli taking them through drills and morale boosting pep talk.
"We have to think about playing football and working as a team instead of thinking about witchcraft," Pasculli told the team. Missing from camp were Hassan Mubiru, Peter Lwebuga and Hakim Magumba.
Pasculli said he wants the team to fly to Ghana by Wednesday next week so that they can acclimatize to the humid conditions there. The Cranes face Ghana at the Kumasi Stadium on 22 June.
Caption: Ugandan footballers based in the US, Standing L-R Mujib Kasule, Byasiima, Andrew Jjombwe. Squatting - Wilbur Musika and Eugene Ssepuuya. The picutre was taken at Byasiima's graduation recently.
