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Vipers are celebrating a fourth Uganda Premier League title in the last six years but how did they manage to win their latest crown?
Vipers are celebrating yet another Uganda Premier League title following their triumph on Wednesday.
Vipers beat Kitara 2-0 on Wednesday to claim the title with a match to spare and it sees them back on the winner’s podium since their win in 2023, having missed out last season.
That is their fourth title in the last six years, showing their dominance, and a seventh in their history, having just been promoted to the top flight 20 years ago.
Vipers are now the third most successful team in Uganda, their seventh titles, only bested by SC Villa, who have 17, and the 13 of KCCA.
As they continue their title celebrations in what has been a tough two-horse race with NEC, Pulse Sports explores how they won a seventh league crown.
Co-coaches working in harmony
When Vipers parted ways with Serbian coach Nikola Kavazovic, they trusted local tacticians John ‘Ayala’ Luyinda and Fred Muhumuzza as co-coaches in a rare move.
Luyinda had joined the club three weeks earlier and the two did not bicker but focused on building a title-winning team.
While Muhumuzza was the face of the team, issuing instructions on the touchline and doing media duties, Luyinda focused on the more technical stuff, formulating winning strategies through his tactical knowhow and the result was a closely-knit team that delivered results on a consistent basis.
The two became the first co-coaches to win the Uganda Premier League crown, having embraced cooperation rather than petty ego fights.
Case for the defence
They say attacks win you matches while defences win you titles and this is exactly what happened for Vipers who won the league by conceding the least number of goals.
Vipers let in just 14 goals and became a hard team for opponents to break down. Their 2-0 victory over Kitara that won them the league title was the fifth straight clean sheet in the league and seventh in a row in all competitions.
Overall, they managed an incredible 20 clean sheets from 29 league games, and conceded more than once only on three occasions in all their 29 games, an incredible return that saw them win the title.
Best attack in the league
Meanwhile, while they conceded the least goals, Vipers also made sure that they scored more than all the other 15 teams in the league.
With a game to spare, the newly-crowned champions have scored 48 league goals, five more than second-placed NEC.
However, it did not look like that would be the case when the season started as they began the new campaign with a 3-1 loss to NEC but a 3-0 thrashing of Express on matchday three showed what was to come.
They went on to score in all but four league matches, two of which were goalless draws, helping them to 21 league wins and 68 points from 29 games.
Most of the goals were netted by the league’s top scorer Allan Okello who has 18 so far heading into the season finale against Bright Stars and looks assured of the Golden Boot as URA’s Ivan Ahimbisibwe has 15.
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