Uganda have the knockout stages of the Africa Cup of Nations in their sights as they prepare to take on Zimbabwe on Wednesday.

The Cranes won their first match at the tournament finals since 1978 in their Group A opener against DR Congo last Saturday.

That year was also the last time they made it to the knockout stages, eventually finished runners-up, and victory over Zimbabwe in Cairo would all but guarantee a return.

Coach Sebastien Desabre said on cafonline.com: “It’s a very important game for us. We are focused on having a good game and forgetting the first game result.

“We top the table now but we need to have a minimum of four points to qualify. Zimbabwe is a very good team.”

Having lost their opening game to hosts Egypt 1-0, Zimbabwe really need three points to keep alive their hopes of progressing.

Their coach Sunday Chidzambwa said: “Against Egypt we didn’t have many chances but we will try to do better this time. We lost against the home team and I think we had a good game.

“I told the players to forget about this match and start to correct our mistakes. We are not here to add numbers, we came to compete.”