AUPL Report: Tale of draws, small margin victories

KAMPALA. A 16-page statistical report issued by the Azam Uganda Premier League shows that 38% of the games in the 2016/17 season ended in draws to emphasize that teams are more even than ever before.
Of the 240 matches, 91 of them ended in draws. Also, 51 games had a winning margin of just one goal. Draws and one-goal victories combined represent 60% of all games.
Two-goal, three-goal and four-goal margin results are just 24, 11 and 1% in a league that had only two games racking up a combined total of seven goals.
Bright Stars’ coach Fred Kajoba thinks the margins on the pitch between the players are down to administration.
“I don’t think there is a huge difference in quality between the players.
“It comes down to the management and players being paid,” Kajoba argues.
Kajoba’s team accounted for 16 draws, the most by any club. However, they old shed URA, Proline and Kirinya-Jinja SS by one stalemate.
We would have had a much closer title race had second-placed SC Villa and Vipers, below them, not drawn 10 games apiece. Most of these were points drops against lowly sides.

Winning streak
KCCA finished top with 66 points, eight better that Villa with Vipers 52 points. URA came fourth having accumulated 48 points in the 30-game season.
The champions drew only six while winning 20 games, four more than Villa. This included a six-game winning streak.
Towards the end of last season, Kajoba revealed that his players had not been for nine months. While that’s baffling it’s not rare for Ugandan players to go unpaid for long periods.
“Besides stability, you could also have a little bit experience like (KCCA’s Geoffrey) Sserunkuma or when Villa had (Emmanuel) Okwi score goals,” the former Uganda Cranes’ goalkeeper added.

Home & Away
Losing just once at their Lugogo astro-turf, a 2-1 reverse suffered to Vipers who completed a double over them, KCCA easily possessed the best home record. URA, who led 2-1 before drawing 2-all, are the only other side to leave the Startimes Stadium with anything noteworthy as KCCA fetched 40 points from a possible 45.
KCCA also had the best record on the road with 26 points, winning seven, drawing five and losing thrice. The fluctuation is so severe as JMC Hippos got relegated without winning a game. Their seven points came from seven draws.

Goals
As KCCA cruised to the league title with 66 points, they also bagged the most number of goals, 59. Villa scored 46 but you have to pin-point eighth-placed Proline with 40 as the third best scorers.
Sserunkuma’s 21 and strike partner Derrick Nsibambi’s seven accounted for 28 of the 59 goals which is 47% of the club’s goals.
That bottom side JMC Hippos scored only 15, an average of half-a-goal per game, lays the league bare in terms of bluntness.
What should worry all Ugandan coaches, including KCCA manager Mike Mutebi, is the fact that not even the champions managed to average two goals per game.
Mutebi often blames “wastefulness of his players” but that doesn’t fully explain the lack of cutting for many of the clubs. The creativity and imagination is generally lacking.
In addition, nine of Muhammad Shaban’s 13, the closest to KCCA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Sserunkuma, came in the first round as he faded badly in the second.
Shaban was clearly overwhelmed by winning the Fufa Player of the Year award back in December as the league turned a corner.
As he slid, Vipers’ Tony Odur and Proline’s Nelson Ssenkatuka had a stellar second half to finish on 12 and 11 respectively. Villa’s Okwi bagged 10 while featuring only in the second round.
He scored a hat trick in 4-1 rout of Onduparaka at Masaka Recreation Ground. The only other hat trick came from youngster Allan Okello in a 7-0 thumping of the same opponent.
There were 35 braces. Bul’s Villa Oromchan had three of those including one in a 3-0 annihilation of Express. As many as 49 penalties were awarded, however, the statistics do not confirm which team got the lion’s share.

Television
Not all these goals were on television. Fufa president Moses Magogo has publicly decried the number of games TV rights holders, Azam, are able to show live.
Last season, only 51 of 240 games were screened for audiences. That’s a lowly 21%! Fittingly, KCCA, Vipers and Express were screened the most with 10 games each.
Eight of those KCCA games on TV came in the second round as Azam sought to capture the title run-in.
Villa and relegated Sadolin got on to television on eight occasions. URA, JMC Hippos and Saints got the least television time with just three games.
The scheduling remains a mystery as often ‘bigger’ games have been shelved for ‘smaller’ ones.

Discipline
Without a sending off, Vipers should comfortably win the Fair Play award even if their 35-yellow card count is only beaten by KCCA who got 25 bookings.
Bul were the most indisciplined side, having got marching orders on four occasions to add to 52 bookings, six more than Lweza, who less than column. Lweza had two red cards. Onduparaka got 52 yellow cards and URA 49.

Challenges
Many will still question the refereeing stands but the report doesn’t mention this at all. “Two matches were abandoned prematurely due to hooliganism this season compared to none in the 2015/16 season,” the reports says.
Adding that; “we recorded one case where a club didn’t turn up for their fixture.” There were also four games decided in the boardroom.