Meet the man who introduced blind football to Uganda
Kampala, Uganda (CNN) The day Robert Munyombi was chosen by his coach to captain the Uganda Warriors — the team that would become West Africa’s blind football champions — he was in a room with a bunch of men from Tanzania, who were all footballers like him.
Munyombi, now 35, was the first, and the youngest, to be chosen as this country’s blind football captain.
“Football is a passion for me,” Munyombi said. “I didn’t know how to play football; I was just playing games at school.”
Munyombi, who has been blind since he was 8 years old, spent his high school years in an orphanage, and he’s been playing with his friends and club teammates — the Kibuku Warriors — ever since.
“I was playing games but I did not know how to play football,” he said.
The country’s blind football clubs had come together for the first time in 2010, when Munyombi was chosen to be the captain for the Uganda Warriors.
He was chosen to lead the team on the day his life changed forever, and he met the father of football, who had been his first coach.
“I just remember that day [I was] sitting with coach [James] Goh.” Munyombi said, adding that Goh took him to a room and told him that if he wanted to win the gold, he was going to need to beat his team.
Munyombi remembers that day but couldn’t remember much of what it was like. He said he just remembered wanting to be a champion and not wanting to fail.
“I couldn’t see anything. I could hear but I’m not sure I could see.”
This is how Munyombi describes it:
“I was a football boy but