Allan Okello shares how he was rejected by SC Villa for being ‘too small’

Allan Okello has faced SC Villa several times

Overview:

Evolving to become the Ugandan football poster boy at the moment, this is the story of Allan Okello, his SC Villa rejection and KCCA redemption.

SC Villa has developed some of the finest players in Ugandan football down the years, but sometimes, a player slips through their grasp.

It speaks volumes to the fine margins of becoming a professional footballer, as much as it does the even narrower margins of decisions that can make or break a player’s future at a certain club.

Allan Okello smiles after scoring one of his goals against Dodoma Jiji

Fortunately for the player in question, his distinctive quality more than made up for a supposed unfavourable size when he was young. He has since showed Villa what they missed but that happens in football with footballers all over the world having several stories about their paths to the top.

Evolving to become the Ugandan football poster boy at the moment, this is the story of Allan Okello, his SC Villa rejection and KCCA redemption.

“I remember I went to Villa and my first day for trials at Villa, I didn’t even get chance to enter the pitch,” Okello revealed in an extensive interview with FUFA TV.

Saidi Mayanja against Villa

“Me and Mayanja (Said), we just played akayumba (rondos) there. By then, their youth side was under coach Ssozi (Phillip) and he told our coaches (that had taken them for trials) that ‘You have brought me these young kids for what’. They are going to knock them.”

Okello, who later made his name at Villa’s rivals KCCA continues to narrate how on the second day, they were only given three minutes on the pitch with his colleague, Mayanja openly telling coach Ssozi

“I didn’t join Villa because I was so small. I and Mayanja, we were so small and Villa then, had players with good bodies and size. We were so talented but our size didn’t do us any favours.

Captain Odrick Ainebyona (left) with SC Villa U-18 head coach Phillip Ssozi after the match with Express at Villa Park

“So, the next day, coach Ssozi had told us that come back and you will get a chance. And so, we come back and the coach gave us three minutes. We frankly told him how can we show we are good in just three minutes? In those minutes, we even may fail to get a touch and Mayanja told me, I am not going back. Those people don’t respect us insisting that maybe they would give us 45 minutes.

“When Mayanja that he is not going back, I also said I am not going back because he was my commander ‘Mudogo’.”

The two have gone on to have successful careers so far with Okello leaving KCCA for ranks in Algeria, before a second stint at Lugogo was followed by a move to Vipers and he is now arguably among the best players at Young Africans in the Tanzania Premier League.

Mayanja has also made a strong impression at KCCA where he is one of the star performers for the Kasasiro in the past three seasons.