Dhaira rests during a training session with Uganda Cranes during his healthy days. The player, who started his career at Walukuba Football Club in Jinja died in a hospital in Iceland. PHOTO BY EDDIE CHICCO
By Ismail Dhakaba Kigongo & Elvis Senono
Posted
Wednesday, March 30
2016 at
01:00
In the past, rules allowed teammates to kick the ball back to their goalkeepers as a safety measure. It killed the tempo as goalkeeper picked the ball up and held it.
Imagine a situation where West Germany’s forward Klaus Fischer in seconds away from nipping the ball off the foot of Italian defender Claudio Gentile in the 1982 World Cup final. Afraid of the consequences, Gentile plays the ball back to his goalkeeper Dino Zoff who in turn picks it up and hold on the Adidas Tango. That was norm. Boring, isn’t it?
After the 1992 World Cup, global body, Fifa, opted to stem the ‘rot’.
“The back-pass rule was introduced in 1992 to discourage time-wasting and overly defensive play…
“…the 1990 World Cup was described as exceedingly dull, rife with back-passing and goalkeepers holding up the ball.
“Also, goalkeepers would frequently drop the ball and dribble it around; only to pick it up again once opponents came closer to put them under pressure, a typical time-stalling technique.”
Had Abel Dhaira been in goal at the time, and played on a global stage, the rule may not have been altered that easily and quickly. Entertainers are not meant to be goalkeepers.
“In 1997, the back-pass rule was extended to prevent goalkeepers handling the ball when received directly from a team-mate’s throw in.”
Abel, son of ex-Cranes goalkeeper Bright Dhaira, perhaps chose the wrong position on the pitch and should have been playing upfront where forwards are allowed mistakes and extravagance.
The gigantic goalkeeper, standing at a towering 6ft 6in, died on Sunday after losing his battle to abdominal cancer in Iceland at the age of 28.
You could almost touch the pain his father’s voice. “It’s very sad I’ve lost my son,” Bright, his father, said.
With him went skills that no goalkeeper had, bar Colombia’s Rene Higuita. Abel had a calming effect on his team and teammates when the ball was played back to him by a colleague or foe.
Instead of hastily picking it or kicking it away, he mollycoddled it on to his back or forehead and let it ‘rest’. When done, he juggled it for a while inviting pressure from opposition strikers.
It’s only their arrival that forced him to pick it up and kill the flamboyance. Punctuate that with the ball hanging on his neck on his back side just metres from his goal.
Frightening stuff. What if…It sounds like catastrophe or a scene from a movie as the bomb timer counts down. While the actor is always expected to disconnect before it gets to zero, the tension is palpable.
Like in the cinemas, this would then be followed by applause and clapping for him by his fans. They were thoroughly entertained, way above the ticket price.
“Sometimes, it was scary. A mistake would mean you concede,” the late David Otti, his coach at Express a decade ago, once commented.
“Of course that helped reduce the pressure and let everyone enjoy the game again,” Sam Ssimbwa, a coach at various clubs before, told Daily Monitor.
Was that followed by a long punt down the ground? No. In most cases, Abel released the ball to one of his defenders. If this was impossible, his reach and gigantic arm allowed him to throw the ball way past the centre line into the opposing half.
Many in the stands could only admire these gifts. It was commonplace for many to exhale the phrases; aww, wow and ohh. You couldn’t easily describe how he does it.
Head start
It helps that being born to Bright, Abel started goalkeeping at a very early age. His father formed the conveyor belt that brought players from the eastern district of Jinja to the national team – Cranes.
Retired Charles Jalendo and today’s Geoffrey Massa, Moses Oloya and Andy Mwesigwa come from the same vicinity. Abel got a head start on everyone. If charity begins at home, then goalkeeping begins in the Dhaira household.
Abel’s younger brother, Eric Dhaira, kept goal for Mubs in the Nile Special University League last year and has been on the books of Soana and KCCA.
In the township of Walukuba, Abel was a hero right from his primary school days through his time at Jinja Secondary School.
His Ugandan goalkeeping peers Robert Odongkara, Salim Jamal, Benjamin Ochan and Hamza Muwonge will be quick to point out that he is the most naturally gifted goalkeeper of their era.
Neither Bright nor his son Abel ever rose to command a starting place in the Uganda Cranes as is the case with Dennis Onyango, today as his name is inscribed into No. 1. However, Abel was easy on the eye. Abel started his career at Walukuba Football Club in Jinja. From Walukuba he moved to Express, then URA, AS Vita (DRC), ÍBV (Iceland), Simba SC (Tanzania) and back to ÍBV. He last appeared for the Cranes in 2013, four years after his debut.
During this time, penalty saves became the norm. Takers must seen have struggled to see any space to put the ball. Those arms covered the entire frame. His hair almost touched the upper post. Abel should have won more than he did, perhaps. He won the 2007 Kakungulu Cup (Uganda Cup) with Express, saving two spot kicks in the 4-2 final shootout victory over the then KCC.
Uganda Cranes managed to win three regional Cecafa titles 2008, 2011 and 2012 with the gentle giant part of the side.
None of this success came at the expense of sacrificing the ethos of entertainment, first for himself then for everyone who went to cheer him on.
That must have taken a lot of hours of practice to be able to pull in a league game and Cecafa Cup final as the pressures must be totally parallel.
As a person, there weren’t any rumours of major flaws in Abel’s personality. “We need to console many of players that were so close to Abel,” Cranes’ coach Micho Sredojevic said.
The team went into last night’s 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualification game against Burkina Faso shrouded in grief.
Tony Mawejje, a teammate of Abel at IBV, though shaken, managed to speak. “I have been with Abel for a long time. It’s very sad he has died at a very young age,” Mawejje retorted.
“It’s very sad that he has died after such a short illness,” Abel was admitted into Nsambya Hospital with suspected acute ulcers.
Weeks later, Abel was recalled by his Icelandic club to get ‘better’ treatment with the club, and its fans as well charity organizations footing the hefty bill as cancer was diagnosed.
In the meantime, the family initiated prayers for him. The Walukuba community joined in whereas many waited to hear Fufa’s voice.
It’s not until last week that Bright made his first public plea for the public to lend a hand with reports that Abel’s digestive was failing.
The desperation was written all over, understandably so. In the end, many of these calls came a little too late. By now, Fufa and many others had jumped in with both hands and feet. The diagnosis was done less than two months before his death.
“He feared God and was well behaved,” Mawejje added. “If you have been with Abel there is no reason to be an enemy. You would want to be with him always.
“He has been my friend, my brother. We have been through a lot together.” While Mawejje’s rhetoric might sound like the routine as is often the case in death, there is a lot of truth in them.
Never has any sports journalist found too much wrong with the lanky figure underneath those short dreads over the past 10 years when he became famous.
Abel, gloves in hand, walked with a smile, or rather grin, that exuded confidence and promise that nothing was going to fly past him even if he conceded goals like all goalkeepers.
His way of dealing with being was to wait for his moment later, throwing the ball past the centre line or dazzling with skills that many outfield players would be proud to have.
You never sensed any panic even if sportsmen often treat every game as a fresh challenge and wear faces of captured beasts before they win to burst into ecstasy.
Renowned guitarist Carlos Santana knows where his strands are and which one produces which pitch and tone.
Abel knew where his goal posts were. The rest of his goal area felt like a well lit stage to entertain fans in ways only Michael Jackson’s moonwalk would compare.
Many Ugandan footballers struggle to express themselves, formally.
So at the height of rumours that Abel Dhaira had returned to Iceland after being diagnosed with cancer at Nsambya, I sought a response from the horse’s mouth.
This was also after initial hesitancy by his family to reveal what the player was actually suffering from.
I would later learn that he had been offline for a couple of days but replied to my message as soon as he saw it.
“I was diagnosed with cancer of the colon,” went the sad reply. “But I am getting better day by day. Need more of your prayers for God is so great he can handle everything,” he added.
In a bit that summed up the footballer Abel from Walukuba, a hotbed for Ugandan football talent in Jinja District.
The area produced many players including his father, himself a former Cranes international goalkeeper as well as Geoffrey Massa, Andy Mwesigwa, Simeon Masaba among many others.
Early days
“Always putting God first, respectful, likeable and a straight talker,” summed up childhood friend and national team cricketer Arthur Kyobe.
Born in a family of five children Abel was the third in a family that includes a sister, Janet and three brothers Abraham, Eric and Musa.
He attended Narambai and Walukuba East Primary Schools before joining Jjinja SS.
Club career
After a brief stint in Mbale, Dhaira joined Express where he guided them to the 2006-2007 Uganda Cup title by saving two post-match penalties in the 4-2 final shootout victory over the then KCC.
“He had a good sense of humour and was fully focused on his football. You could see that he was destined for a good career because unlike many other players was not into alcohol or drugs,” former Express teammates Hamza Ssemwogerere and Kassim Kasawuli, described him in separate interviews.
Troublesome injuries
Known for entertaining his fans with ball juggling antics even when under pressure, Dhaira then moved to URA where he was plagued by a troublesome groin injury, the first of many that would plague his career.
This did not stop Congo’s AS Vita from signing him in 2009 before he moved to ÍB Vestmannaeyjar for his first stint at the Icelandic club.
Cranes colours
A string of impressive performances had by then seen him make his Cranes debut and impressed as Uganda won the Cecafa title at the start of 2009. He went on to win further titles in 2011 and 2012.
Like in the 2009 edition, however, he missed large chucks of the tournament after suffering nasty collisions the last of which left him with a broken jaw.
He also came off injured after a collision with a Moroccan player that saw him last only three minutes into the match against Morocco in the 2011 LG Cup and was not invited again for the Cranes after 2013.
He did not fare any better at Tanzanian club Simba with injuries plaguing much of his time there. He then returned to Iceland where he played a total of 72 games with IBV in the league and Cup tournament in the period 2011-2015.
Latter days
Before he fell sick, Dhaira seemed to have established himself at the club in the second round of the Iceland topflight league that ended in October.
He started seven straight league games as his IBV club finished 10th in the 12- team log to narrowly survive relegation.
“He returned home at the start of November but started complaining about his health about three weeks after,” Bright, the father explained.
“He initially complained of malaria, and then we later thought it was ulcers. That was when he was taken for further tests at Nsambya hospital,” he added.
With his condition failing to improve Dhaira was then flown to Iceland where he has been treated before breathing his last. His IBV club last month also organised a fundraising game for the goaltender that was played between current and former players.
Burial arrangements
Domestic football governing body which issued its first official statement on the player’s health last week has since undertaken burial arrangements.
They got in touch with government yesterday with the latter offering to transport the body back home.
This was after several people had started soliciting for money on behalf of the family to aid the return of the player’s body.
“Two of my other sons and my brother are in Kampala to liaise with Fufa and State House officials to sort out further details,” stated Bright.
Cranes to honour fallen colleague
The shot-stopper was also popular among his players with many including Dennis Onyango, Tony Mawejje, Brian Umony and many others taking to social media to pay tribute to their former colleague.
“You will always be in our hearts RIP.Abel Dhaira it was a pleasure meeting you, until we meet again brother,” wrote goalkeeper Dennis Onyango on his facebook wall
“He has been a God fearing man humble and loving,” added former Cranes captain Andy Mwesigwa a former IBV player himself who was consistently in touch with the player. Yesterday, players wore t-shirts bearing Dhaira’s image during warm up. A minute’s silence was also observed before the game between Uganda Cranes and Burkina Faso. #RIPABELDHAIRA.
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