Can Kitara FC handle pressure of title race?

No professional football coach wants to be frequently asked the same questions every week but Kitara Football Club’s head coach Brian Ssenyondo has had to answer all sorts of questions related to the club's title ambitions. 

Ssenyondo seemed to have managed the public’s expectations and journalists' ruthless questions the entire season up until last week when Kitara lost 1-0 to NEC Football Club at Philip Omondi stadium.

If there is anything that Kitara has done perfectly well this season is playing with confidence and focusing on the next game which has kept them at the summit for the majority part of the Uganda Premier League 2023/2024 season. 

However, trouble is looming around the Masindi-based club territory, after that defeat to NEC that left them on 44 points just one point ahead of BUL FC (43) and three points on Vipers Sports Club (41) who have two games in hand. 

NEC have been the party spoilers since the start of the second round, they have been in four different positions in the top four and on forty points placed fifth having played the same games as the table leaders Kitara, not all hope is lost. 

They still have to play BUL on April 24, then host Vipers at Phillip Omondi on May 11, 2024, before welcoming record champions Sports Club Villa at home in their game of the season. 

All the aforementioned games have a huge say in this title run in depending on who wins.

The advantage that Kitara has is that they are the table leaders, pressure and walls might be closing in on them but no team among the chasers has leapfrogged them all this time. 

It is only Kitara that can let that happen in the remaining six games. Their biggest test will be Vipers who they host at their home in Masindi on Friday next week, a game that will have many tales to it. 

Vipers were very lucky to be awarded the three points in the nail bitting first leg 2-1 victory over Kitara at St Mary’s Kitende in December, 2023 after the assistant referee’s controversial decision that denied Kitara an equalizer in the dying minutes when Ramathan Dudu’s header was deemed offside. 

Considering the way this season’s Uganda Premier League has been unpredictable at the top, it would be senseless to think that Kitara losing their previous games could cost them the title or Vipers' two games in hand give them an advantage, or BUL and SC Villa have control during the last few games.