The head coach of the Uganda Crested Cranes, George Lutalo has named a squad of 47 players ahead of the regional CECAFA Women’s Championship.
Lutalo told Sports News Africa that the regional tournament will help his team prepare better for the TotalEnergies Women Africa Cup of Nations to take place in Morocco.
“I have invited both local and foreign based players and we enter residential training on May 7th,” said Lutalo who made it clear that he will trim the squad a few days to the tournament.
Uganda will host the regional tournament from May 22 to June 5th at the FUFA Technical center in Njeru. Eight teams including the hosts, Djibouti, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, South Sudan and Zanzibar have confirmed participation.
“As the technical team we have made efforts to look at the players at their respective clubs and we are really hopeful that the team summoned will be able to deliver,” added the Uganda Crested Cranes coach.
He stated that the regional tournament comes at a good team to give the CECAFA representatives Uganda and Burundi good match playing time before they battle it out in Morocco. “This tournament will help us test some of the players, especially foreign based who will be featuring for the first time,” added Lutalo.
Among the foreign based players summoned includes the U-20 team captain Fauzia Najjemba who plies her trade in Kazakhstan with Bilk Shymkent and Juliet Nalukenge (Chrysomalia FC, Cyprus). The others incl;ude; Natasha Shirazi (Maccabi Kishronot Hadea, Israel), Tracy Jones Akiror (AFC Ann Arbor, USA) and goalkeeper Ruth Aturo (Katkan Tyovaen Palloillijat, Finland).
