'I know the best is yet to come from Uganda' -Laryea Kingston

Former Ghana midfielder Laryea Kingston believes Uganda has more talented young footballers waiting to be discovered, as he continues his work with the country’s youth teams.

Kingston, who has guided Uganda’s U-17 team to the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup and the 2027 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, says the technical qualities of Ugandan players make them a good fit for his style of play.

“I find myself in the right place. I find myself in the country that most of the players, their qualities fits my style of play. We're looking at players that are comfortable with the ball, very technical players,” he said.

The former Black Starlets coach drew comparisons between Ghanaian and Ugandan players, explaining that their technical abilities have helped him adapt to his role.

“Ugandans are not far from Ghanaians, the quality that the Ghanaians have. So for me, that's what makes it easy for me because I'm a Ghanaian, and I know technically Ghanaian players are very good on the ball,” he added.

Despite the progress made so far, Kingston believes the talent pool in Uganda extends beyond the players already identified by his technical team.

He says building a database of young players and monitoring their development will be key to finding more prospects, with training camps providing opportunities to work with them and improve their abilities.

“I know the best is yet to come in this country because I can see our database with few kids, but I can see there are more better players than what we've found,” Kingston said.

“The most important thing is to have a data that we can monitor all of them and make sure we engage them with training camps, because this is what I learned.”

Uganda are preparing for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar, where they have been drawn in Group B alongside South Korea, Ecuador and New Caledonia.

Kingston’s longer-term task will be to build on the team’s recent achievements by widening the search for talent and establishing a system that allows promising young players to be identified, monitored and developed beyond the current squad.