Boys Final: Buganda 1-2 Northern
Well aware of a passionate home crowd, Northern Region boys football team was a class act, winning 2-1 against an over confident Buganda side as the 2016 Airtel Rising Stars U-17 national championship climaxed on Sunday at the Uganda Technical College in Lira.
As early the opening five minutes, neutralists had converted and were convinced beyond reasonable measure that the championship was Northern Region’s to lose.
Defender Musa Jjagwe diverted a low ball past his own goalkeeper to the net as the home side took the lead.
The crowd once again cheered another goal 10 minutes later when defender Musa Ramathan, arguably the tallest on the field of play made it 2-0.
In fact, the cross bar came to the mercy of Buganda as the energized Northern Region team, full of steam and vigour nearly scored the third.
Later in the second half, the tale was no different as in the first but clumsy finishing denied Northern region a cricket score, against a side that had no conceded coming to the final.
With the last quarter an hour of action, Karim Byaruhanga scored the consolation for team Buganda and create hope for an equalizer and a tense climax to the final.
Earlier, Buganda region had won the girls’ version, having overcome Eastern 1-0, thanks to Josephine Ndagire’s strike after a goal melee.
For the past two months, the ARS organizing committee had organized the regional qualifiers were played in all the eight FUFA Regions were engaged ahead of the national finals.
Uganda U-17 head coach, Peter Onen envisages and tips a bright future ahead of the youngsters.
“Personally, I have been impressed by the quality exhibited by these young players. The advantage is that we also had MRI tests and minimized age cheating. This has helped to play with the right age groups”
The nucleus of Uganda’s U-17 team at the 2017 CECAFA U-17 tournament stems from the selected crop of players at the tournament of ARS.
Rewards:
Individual awards were given to outstanding players (best goalkeeper, top scorer and MVP’s) with teams taking home silver and gold medals.
Each of the two winners pocketed Ug.shs 5M (Buganda and Northern) with the runners up taking home Ug.shs 3M each.
The tournament is proudly sponsored by the official Uganda Cranes’ sponsors – Airtel Uganda Limited for the last six years.
Individual Top performers:
MVP’s: Rashida Nankya Kampala (Girls) & Thomas Kakaire – Buganda (Boys)
Top Scorers: Karim – Northern (Boys) – 7 Goals & Anita Namata – Kampala (Girls) – 6 Goals
Preliminary Stage Results:
Boys:
Northern 3-2 Kampala
Kitara 0-4 Buganda
North East 0-1 Western
Western 0-1 West Nile
Kampala 1-3 North East
Buganda 1-0 Eastern
Western 0-0 Northern
West Nile 0-0 Kitara
North East 0-3 Northern
Western 1-2 Kitara
Kampala 1-2 Kitara
Kampala 0-0 Western
Buganda 3-0 West Nile
Semi-finals:
Northern 4-0 West Nile
Buganda 3-0 Western
