KCCA happy to meet team that loves to play

New Generation. KCCA have an exciting young team with playmaker Okello leading from the front. PHOTO BY ISMAIL KEZAALA

What you need to know:

  • Petro de Luanda have not started brightest in their national league, drawing one and losing another of their opening games. KCCA have won both theirs.
    The Angolans are the most successful side in their country with 15 league titles. KCCA have 13.

In the beginning he was too difficult to decipher - for most. But by now, a vast majority will have accepted Mike Mutebi for who he is.

A frequently stubborn - yet firm - man in decision making, Mutebi’s approach to games and his lineups are often hardly the best prescription for a heart patient. But he lives and does it his way, anyway. The KCCA way. ‘Our way!’

This Saturday at Estádio 11 de Novembro in Luanda, Angola, KCCA followers will again wait in anticipation when he names his lineup to face the tough Angolans, Petro de Luanda, in the first leg of the Caf Champions League.

And Mutebi is relishing both - the opponents and the challenge. “We are going to play a team that really wants to play football,” he excitedly Daily Monitor yesterday before the team departed for Luanda. “Those are the teams you want to play. They play well but I believe these lads (KCCA) now have a lot of confidence in themselves. “And they are ready to face any club on the continent. They are looking forward and are saying yeah, we are going there to play – just like we did in Cecafa (where they lifted the title), in North Africa and elsewhere.”

Mutebi and his technical team have done quite some homework on their opponents. “They have this Portuguese and Brazilian kind of play. “And they have a very good winger (Ricardo Job Estévão). He is too good. All their attacks mainly go through him. He is not this playmaker who is always in the central axis but he operates on the left hand side.

“But other than that they play this type of organized football, really attacking football but like I said, we believe in ourselves and it’s the best teams we want to face, playing them our way.”

KCCA have an exciting young team, with playmaker Allan Okello, teenager Sadat Anaku, experienced Muzamiru Mutyaba and his namesake Mike some of the names to make any impact in Luanda.

Petro de Luanda have not started brightest in their national league, drawing one and losing another of their opening games. KCCA have won both theirs.
The Angolans are the most successful side in their country with 15 league titles. KCCA have 13.

CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

First leg - Saturday, September 14
Petro de Luanda vs. KCCA
Return leg - Weekend of Sept 27-29
KCCA vs. Petro de Luanda