You are here: HomeSports2003 12 30Article 49042

Soccer News of Tuesday, 30 December 2003

Source: The Nation (Nairobi)

Analysis of Ghana's World Cup Group

Uganda will open their 2006 World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifiers campaign at home against the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The match is slated for the June 4-6, 2004 weekend at Kampala's Nelson Mandela National stadium. Other teams in the Group Two are South Africa, Ghana, Burkina Fasso and Cape Verde .

According to the fixtures released this week by the African Football Confederation, Uganda will also wind up the qualifiers at home against Burkina Fasso over the October 7-8, 2005 weekend.

The last time Uganda played DRC was in 1991 in the qualifiers for the Senegal 1992 Nations Cup finals. Uganda lost the first leg, in Kinshasa, 0-1 but managed to win the return 2 - 1 in Kampala. The Cranes almost made it to the finals but failed to register the required win over Tanzania in Dar es Salaam.

On their part, Kenya under tactician Reinhardt Fabisch became the only East African side to make it to the Senegal finals.

The Uganda Cranes will renew their rivalry with Ghana Black Stars in Kampala between July 2-4 and play the return leg between September 2-4, 2005. Uganda will host South Africa's Bafana Bafana between October 8-10, 2004 and play the return leg in Johannesburg on the weekend of March 25-27, 2005.

This year Uganda shocked Ghana 1-0 in Kampala in a 2004 Tunis, Nations Cup, qualifying round tie before holding them 1-1 in the return leg in Kumasi

But both were edged out by Rwanda, who will be making a debut at the African Nations Cup finals in Tunis. The best performance by Uganda was in 1978 when they lost to the Ghana Black Stars 2-0 in the finals in Accra.

Winners in each of the groups qualify for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany while the top three teams in each group plus the best placed fourth team will qualify for the Africa Nations Cup Finals in Egypt.