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Innocent Wafula’s humble albeit committed journey to the Uganda Cranes

Innocent Wafula was born to the late Bwire Ogutu and Mary Omoding.

Like most footballers, Wafula fell in love with the beautiful game at the age of ten and virtually kicked whatever came his way.

The love was stimulated  when his parents moved to the rich footballing hub of Walukuba in Jinja city, where football is the order of the day. 

While at Walukuba, the little  Wafula picked inspiration  from retired Uganda Cranes  Captain Geoffrey  Massa and Moses Oloya who currently plays in Vietnam thus kept pursuing  his dream of playing football to get to their level. 

Because his parents  were traders, Wafula moved with them wherever they went for business and therefore  moved with them to Kenya  and it is where he started  playing  serious football  with Busia Combined  Football  Club and later Chemeli Sugar before joining giants Gor Mahia.

He later switched sides to Uganda Premier League League at Vipers Sports Club, playing two seasons and now at Mbarara City in the Western region.

Innocent Wafula dribbles the ball during Uganda Cranes first training session at the MTN Omondi Stadium, Lugogo

At Kogero,  the flying  right back featured with Ugandans like Dan Mzee Sserunkuma, Khalid Aucho and Godfrey ‘Baba’ Kizito.

His spectacular display at Gor Mahia tickled the Harambe Stars technical side to summon him for National  Team Duties which  later did not go well because his citizenship was doubted. 

Wafula says that former  Uganda Cranes Tactician Sredejovic ‘Micho’ Milutin had started  monitoring  his progress  but unfortunately left before a call up. 

‘Since then I lost hope of featuring for the Cranes and concentrated on club football’ said Wafula.

He narrates that returning  to Uganda  to play for Vipers  revived his hopes of playing for Uganda Cranes thus this called up is a wakeup  call to work harder .

‘God has granted me a rare second chance which  I need to put to the best utilization. This might be my chance to feature at AFCON or even World Cup. I can not rule out the pressure  but I will play my part and leave the rest to the technical team’ Wafula adds.

About the competition in his position, the soft spoken flying  right back said that he welcomes the competition and it is positive for him because  it pushes him to work harder and also learn from those who featured earlier for the Cranes.

While speaking about the Cranes transition process, Wafula says it is a good composition of the youth and experienced players, where the young can always learn from the experienced and by the time the young ones become mainstays it will be easy for them. 

He also added that this transition is here for a reason and had not  it been so he wouldn’t  have been part of the squad. 

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