Sebastien Desabre has been chosen to be named as Uganda Cranes head coach by Thursday afternoon at the Fufa headquarters in Kampala ahead of Chan 2018 scheduled for January 12-February 4 in Morocco.
The 41-year old French tactician, who has been in charge of Egyptian table leaders Ismaily till Wednesday evening, will arrive in the Ugandan capital in the wee hours of Thursday ready to be handed the role that fell vacant when Serbian Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic left in July.
A source who preferred to remain unanimous told supersport.com that, “It is confirmed that Desabre is heading to Uganda. After guiding Ismaily to a 5-0 win over bottom placed El Raja this evening, he had a meeting with the board of the club and informed them that he would be leaving.”
“It is definitely not about money because he is very passionate about coaching the Uganda Cranes. He has done very well with Ismaily since taking over at the beginning of the season and he leaves them at the top of the Egyptian Premier League table standings but the fans will be very disappointed.”
This is Desabre’s first stint with a national side following a rather illustrious journey on the continent where he has been in charge of big name clubs since joining Ivorian giants ASEC Mimosas in 2010.
He then joined the renowned Coton Sport for the period 2012-2013 before taking up three different roles at Esperance de Tunis between 2013-2014 including as technical director, head coach and general manager.
In 2015, Desabre then went down south to Angola where he helped Recreativo Despotivo Libolo win the Angola Super Cup and guided them to first place on the table till the mid-season mark before leaving for Dubai Club in the United Arab Emirates.
The following year, he was in charge of Algerian side Jeunesse Sportive de Saoura before replacing John Toshack at Wydad Casablanca in September to guide them to second place in the Botola league.
Desabre then joined Ismaily in July 2017 and has left them top of the league table with 37 points from 16 matches, seven clear of giants Al Ahly and 12 ahead of Zamalek.
His first task with the Cranes will be to prepare them for Chan 2018 with Uganda making a fourth appearance at the fifth edition of the tournament organized for locally based players in their domestic leagues.
Later in 2018, Desabre will be looking to maintain top position in Group L of the Afcon 2019 qualifiers ahead of Cape Verde, Lesotho and Tanzania with the priority being to return Uganda to Africa’s premier football showpiece for a second consecutive time since missing out for 39 years.
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