Lady Doves Women Football Club has managed to book itself a comfortable seat in the finals of the FUFA Women Super league (WSL) despite the absence of their creative striker, Fazira Ikwaput. They overcame Kawempe Muslim Ladies WFC in the semi-finals at the Njeru based FUFA technical center this morning.
Lady Doves lost the FWSL title to Kawempe during the 2018/2019 season as both sides presented the much-needed rhythm to excel to the finals. Lady Doves suffered a thigh injury during the first half of the Semi-final match. Ikwaput, who currently prides in seven goals earned from four games, has been earmarked as the club’s matchmaker due to her speed in getting the ball into their opponents’ nets.
Her absence partly staggered their club’s chances, since Kawempe kept on pressing into their 18-yard box yet they lacked a fast striker to counter the same. Lady Doves’ midfielder, Ritah Nabossa earned her team a goal in the last minute of the first round, which they managed to contain throughout the playing time.
Rajab Buyinza, the Lady Doves’ assistant coach says that prior to the league, he tasked his players to train for at least four days without Ikwaput and the findings indicated that although they had a renowned creative striker in Ikwaput, other players had the ability to fill the gap in case of her absentia.
Nabossa, who normally carries the responsibility of feeding Ikwaput with forward balls, told journalists that although the game weighed down heavily on her shoulders, she had to fit into the latter’s shoes and play in the striking strides which partly helped their team to win the game.
Kawempe’s head coach, Moses Nkata denies claims that his players intentionally injured Ikwaput so as to easily sail through the finals arguing that the player seemed unstable before the game and landed badly on the turf, which worsened her injury. Nkata blames their loss on poor match officiating by both the centre referee and the linesmen claiming that his players were fouled under their watch. URN