Mugabi’s AFCON coronavirus blow
Motherwell star Bevis Mugabi says it’s a blow that his Africa Cup of Nations dream might be over because of the coronavirus outbreak – but he hopes there will be other opportunities.
Qualifiers for the tournament have been postponed, and with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) yet to pencil in when they can take place, Mugabi knows he and Uganda might not be able to take part.
However, he said it’s just a knock-on effect which has also resulted in events like the Tokyo 2020 Olympics being postponed.
The 24-year-old defender said: “It’s a blow, and it has had a knock-on effect on everything because that’s the Euros, the Olympics, everything.
“Nobody knows what is going to happen, we just have to sit it out over the next couple of weeks.
“Being involved with Uganda is good, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, something I think every professional footballer wants to achieve in their career and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do it at a fairly young age.
“I’m just a bit gutted that the games have been called off with the qualifiers, but it is what it is. It has been a good experience so far on the international side of things and I can’t complain.
“Playing against big players in international football gives you that exposure too, and the extra determination to get to that level.
“Coming back to Scotland and playing games against Celtic and Rangers, you can see there’s always that chance to get to that level, so it’s just believing that it’s actually possible.”
Mugabi, who qualifies due to his parents being Ugandan, added: “They wanted to call me up when I was at Southampton but I thought I was a bit too young to be playing international football when I hadn’t even made my first-team debut yet, so that didn’t make sense to me.
“When I first went to Yeovil and was playing quite a lot of games, the manager got in contact with me and said to come and play a few friendlies, to see if I liked it. Then he called me up for a training camp just before the African Cup of Nations, which I was surprised about, and I got called up for the final squad to go to the actual tournament, and it was a good experience, getting into the last 16.
“Hopefully we qualify for another and a World Cup, so it’s all going in the right direction. We just have to make sure we get the results that we need.”