Uganda Cranes defender Toby Sibbick says that they want to have a deep run at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations that gets underway this Sunday in Morocco.
Sibbick who features for English Football League One side Burton Albion will be making his AFCON debut and says that playing at this competition is a dream come true.
“AFCON is a competition I watched growing up as a child and now to be particiating in it is a dream come true,” Sibbick stated.
Sibbick who can play both at right and centre back, is expected to start in a four-man defence alongside Elio Capradossi, Jordan Obita and Aziz Kayondo for the Cranes.
The Cranes face Tunisia on December 23rd in their opener before subsequent group games against Tanzania and Nigeria.
“We are hoping that we can really do well in the competition and surprise a lot of people.”
On the team preparations, he revealed: “We played a match between ourselves and the intensity was high, and it’s definitely what we needed in order to compete.”
The top two teams of each group, along with the best four third-placed teams, will advance to the round of 16.
He added: “Us as players we need to perform as well as we can, we want to win every game, it is something we are looking forward to, we just want to go out there and prove everyone that we are a competitive nation and we want to go far as really as we can.”
The Cranes had an impressive campaign in the 2019 AFCON, getting out of the group before they were stopped by Sadio Mane’s Senegal at the Round of 16.