Can Vipers SC and KCCA FC raise our flag high on the continent next season?

What you need to know:

Regardless, KCCA FC will have to contend with Caf Confederation Cup football after a topsy-turvy season in which successes were rare.

Vipers SC's league and cup double punched its and KCCA FC's ticket to next season's continental football competitions. Unlike the past season in which the Venoms comfortably outperformed their chief rival, a razor-thin margin of a superior goal difference guaranteed Caf Champions League football this time round.

Regardless, KCCA FC will have to contend with Caf Confederation Cup football after a topsy-turvy season in which successes were rare. When they cut Morley Byekwaso loose at the backend of the season that has just ended, the stage was set for Jackson Mayanja to be a beneficiary—or perhaps victim—of Lugogo’s endless appetite for a first league title since the 2018/2019 season.

The last-gasp loss away to Vipers SC has been rightly held out as a watershed moment. Equally decisive during the title run-in, though, were dropped points against cannon fodder like Onduparaka and Busoga United. It is believed that the inability to stop KCCA FC's richly assembled outfit from blowing hot and cold corroded confidence in Mayanja. 

The grapevine has since identified Sam Ssimbwa, who—much like Mayanja—wore KCCA FC's golden yellow strip with great distinction, as a slam-dunk for appointment at Lugogo. Ssimbwa, who interweaves formal elegance, sly wit, and emotional ambiguity, is available after running out his contract with Kitara. This after securing top flight football for the club.

Unlike KCCA FC, the coaching position at Kitende does not rest on a cornerstone of conjecture. For now. After guiding the Venoms to their maiden league and cup double, Alex Isabirye is enjoying  enormous goodwill at what is traditionally a fiery cauldron for coaches.

If Isabirye does not stumble into catastrophe, and KCCA FC continues to show a remarkably light interest in hiring foreign coaches, the labours of home-bred coaches will deal with a hefty share of scrutiny. Mike Mutebi showed that Ugandan coaches do not necessarily have to look like a fish out of water during Caf inter-club competitions. Feats at such a grand stage, however, do not fall into someone’s lap.

Whoever is entrusted with Vipers SC and KCCA FC's continental fortunes will have to work just as hard, just as attentively, as Mutebi did. Above all, Mutebi's determination to get on to the front foot when KCCA FC reached the business end of the Caf inter-club events should be a necessity rather than a choice.

If the collective failures of Ugandan clubs in recent times maintain a submerged presence in the consciousness of Caf inter-club events, it is because of their passive approach. While the sympathies of Ugandan clubs lie with Ugandan football faithful, the bet of the latter when it comes to Caf inter-club football is a generalised feeling of better luck next year. 

Such exasperation of the fans takes on great significance when allowed to see Vipers SC's performance in the 2022/2023 Caf Champions League in granular detail and with synoptic vision.

After plundering four goals against the Central African Republic's Olympic Real de Bangui in the first round, the Venoms hit a speed bump when it came to scoring goals. They eventually mustered one goal in—wait for it—eight matches. Half of those matches were at the group stage.

Goals win matches. The simplicity of this dictum ought to impressed upon our local coaches and players alike. Evidently, our clubs have to be in the habit of seizing the initiative by scoring goals. And scoring them by the truckload. Short of that, our representatives on the continent will always be the bridesmaid and never the bride.