Amavubi Stars head coach Branko Tucak has given a big slap across the face of Rwanda’s professional footballers. They’re not good enough, he confessed. But when a second-rated player plays for a second-rated club, professional or amateur, what do you expect? Mediocrity definitely.

Unfortunately that is the state of affairs Tucak find himself faced with, and in his own words, Rwanda’s professional players are not good enough—no wonder they play for Europe’s second-rated clubs.

In a bold assessment of his squad ahead of Saturday’s opening 2010 World and Africa Cup qualifier against Algeria in Kigali, Tucak admitted, "Our best players (professionals) are finding it difficult to win first team places in their respective clubs and this a major concern to me.”

He confesses how hard it is to take when he reads the facts that only two of his seven professional summoned for Saturday’s crunch tie play regularly for their clubs.

Hamad Ndikumana (Omonio, Cyprus) and Boubakar Saddou (Al Ahly Tripoli, Libya) are playing regularly in the clubs yet players including the team captain Olivier Karekezi, Bobo Bola, Saidi Abedi, Henry Munyaneza and Jimmy Mulisa are struggling to win first team places at club level.

And for the coach to make such brave assessment of his supposed-to-be star players in the build-up to such a big game says something, which only someone in a desperate situation can come up with.

Still smarting from the resignation of his capable assistant Raoul Shungu a fortnight ago, Tucak sounds a desperate man and by coming up with his assessment of his players at this time, sounds like a fore warning of the bad times ahead.

The Croat knows more than anyone else that it’s going to take a lot than most Rwandans can imagine for Amavubi Stars to qualify for even the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, not mentioning the World Cup in South Africa.

Therefore, to avoid being singled out for Rwanda’s failure, it comes to that, the 56-year-old is trying to divert the attention from himself to the players, whom we’ve all know for so long are average to say the least.

Whether Tucak has just realized that fact is open to debate, but the bottom line is that all Rwanda’s professionals are second-rate and their misery is further compounded by the fact that they play for second-rate teams.

Karekezi (Ham Kam), Bobo Bola (unknown), Mulisa (Beveren) all play for second tier clubs in Norway, Sweden and Belgium respectively—all countries that don’t set European football alight.

Ends