Vipers, KCCA continue treasure hunt

The second round of the StarTimes Uganda Premier League (SUPL) fell upon us with storylines almost everywhere across the 16-team table.
Paul Mucureezi’s debut winning goal for Vipers in the 1-0 victory over Kyetume was always going to lead the pace-setters storyline, more so that the January acquisition from Mbarara City was doing it to further the Venoms quest to wrest the title from his latter team, KCCA.

Not that KCCA stressed over that. They had done their job earlier thanks to a rare goal from Filbert Obenchan for a 1-0 win over Mucureezi’s ex-team, Mbarara.
In the end, Vipers and KCCA - on 39 and 35 points respectively -, had done their professional job of not letting up, and had as well further grown the gap on third-placed Bul, who lost to Bright Stars, by 10 and six.
At the bottom, Proline and Police dropped their own resilient subplots, winning away to Maroons and Wakiso Giants respectively.
In the west Tooro lost the match by forfeiture to Onduparaka after failing to raise the minimum seven players needed for the game to kick off, while Express fell to Busoga United in the east.

Today provides yet another chance for those that started the second act on a wrong note to make amends, the recovering ones to press the gas harder, and Vipers and KCCA to continue their treasure hunt away to Proline and Bright Stars respectively. Despite Mucureezi’s winner, Vipers coach Edward Golola is the first to acknowledge they lacked poise and showed little purpose against Kyetume, the more reason they should polish up away to a Proline side buoyed by their 2-1 victory at Maroons last week.
“I admit we did not play impressively, but am happy with the boys, we managed to get the three points,” said Golola, who will hope Fahad Bayo and Daniel Sserunkuma urgently join the scoring party against brace hero (against Maroons) Hamis Kiiza and co.
“But we have just resumed and the first game isn’t always easy. Expect improvement going forward.” KCCA manager Mike Mutebi’s side were still waiting on Sadat Anaku and Mustafa Kizza among others to get their licenses yesterday, while Allan Okello is out with illness. Most players in the league played the first round on temporary licenses.

But Mutebi is generally confident in the available players. “Bright Stars are fighting for their lives but we also want to win. It will be tough but I believe we have enough in our armoury to negotiate the tie,” he said.
Vipers and KCCA have exchanged the league title between themselves since 2013, with the former claiming it five times.
SC Villa, who lost 2-0 to URA in their previous outing, will hope to make amends when they welcome a Busoga side fresh from beating Express by a similar score.
Maroons travel to a very difficult venue in Arua to face Onduparaka hoping to recover from defeat to Proline.

UPL Standings

p w d l f a pts
Vipers SC 16 12 3 1 24 7 39
KCCA FC 16 11 2 3 33 15 35
BUL 16 8 5 3 20 10 29
SC Villa 16 7 6 3 22 14 27
Onduparaka 16 8 2 6 24 14 26
URA FC 16 5 8 3 15 11 23
Busoga United 16 6 3 7 19 16 21
Wakiso Giants 16 6 2 8 18 20 20
Mbarara City 16 5 4 7 18 20 19
Maroons FC 16 5 4 7 19 26 19
Express FC 16 5 3 8 20 25 18
KYETUME 16 5 1 10 11 26 16
Police FC 16 5 3 8 17 25 15
Tooro United 16 4 2 10 10 27 14
Bright Stars 16 2 7 7 11 18 13
Proline FC 16 5 3 8 8 24 12

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