- Saturday June 10, 2017
- Cape Verde Vs Uganda – Praia City @ 4.30pm (Local Time) 8.30pm (EAT)
Emmanuel Arnold Okwi has described Uganda Cranes game against Cape Verde as very important to his national team career.
The SC Villa centre forward is part of the team to take on the Islanders on Saturday June 10, 2017 in their first game of Group L of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations Cup qualifiers after he was overlooked for the finals in Gabon early this year.
“It’s a very important game for us as a team not just me a player,” he said on Friday.
But mostly as an individual because it’s my first competitive game since I came back here. I am looking forward to doing well so that am on the list for the next games. But as you know, football is not played by just an individual but as a team.
The centre forward who seems to have revived his career at Villa Park however warns his teammates against expecting it easy against the home side who says deserves respect.
It’s going to be tough but nothing comes easy. Cape Verde is a very good team, we respect them but we are going to fight and get the points that we came for here.
From Dakar, Senegal, the national team travelled in batches to Praia with the big batch arriving in Cape Verde less than 10 hours to the game but Okwi says that hiccup can’t be used as an excuse.
We are not going to put that up as an excuse. We are going to fight and make sure we get the desired three points or at least a point to make it easy to qualify for the finals in Cameroon.
Okwi is one of the longest serving centre forwards on the team but has always come short in terms of scoring goals in qualification campaigns.
He is touted by many as a long term replacement for retired skipper Geoffrey Massa to lead the line for the Cranes.