How Rays of Grace successfully defended primary schools’ football title

2022 National Primary Schools Football Championship (Odilo)

• Boys Final: Rays of Grace 0 (5) – 0 (4) Paorihner Primary School
• Third Place Play-off: Kibuli Islamic 0-2 Bright View

Classification Games:

• Prime View 0-1 Vision for Children
• Nansana Modern 1-2 Winners Academy

The 2022 national primary schools football championship was successfully completed at the FUFA Technical Centre, Njeru.

Njeru based Rays of Grace won the tournament christened as “Odilo”.

In the final game, Rays of Grace overcame Agago district’s Paorihner Primary School 5-4 in post-penalties after normal time had ended goal-less.

After a slow start when they fell 0-2 to Bright View in the opening match, Rays of Grace swiftly recovered to win their two subsequent games and make it to the semi-final grade.

Nicholas Kawooya and Hakim Osama were on target when they overcame North East’s Vision for Children 2-0.

In their final group stage game, Rays of Grace condemned Kampala region’s Nansana Modern 3-0.

Amos Molu, Osama and Collin Talemwa were on target.

In the semi-final clash, Rays of Grace easily beat Kibuli Islamic 3-0 with Kawooya, Isaac Asindu and Douglas Kikomeko on target for Michael Kabali and Richard Kamanzi’s coached side.

 “We have had a good platform for the young boys to expose their talents and I want to thank FUFA for this initiative. I want to also thank my players for showing character and composure throughout the tournament. It has not been easy for us to win but the determination to keep pushing helped us.” Kamanzi revealed as quoted by the FUFA news portal.

Individual Awards:

Rays of Grace’s Nicholas Kawooya was the Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Sudais Abdulrahman, also of Rays of Grace was the best goalkeeper.

With five goals to his name, Paorihner Primary School’s Joseph Langol was the tournament top scorer.

During the third place-off, Bright View edged Kibuli Islamic 2-0.

Classification matches:

Winners Academy (Kitara Region) were 2-1 victors over Nansana Modern (Kampala Region) for the 5^th/6^th place

North East region’s Vision for Children pipped Prime View (Eastern region) 1-0 in the 7^th/8^th play-off.

Nansana Modern earned the fair play-spirit accolade.

In the girl’s category, champions Bombo UMEA won the female gender at the expense of Habanom Academy.

Four teams; Rays of Grace and Paorihner (boys) as well as Rays of Grace and Paorihner Primary School will represent Uganda at the 2022 East Africa Games (FEASSSA) in Arusha.

Individual Awards:

• Most Valuable Player (MVP): Nicholas Kawooya (Rays of Grace)
• Fair play Award: Nansana Modern
• Top Scorer: Joseph Langol (Paorihner) – 5 goals
• Best Goalkeeper: Sudais Abdulrahman (Rays of Grace)