Kyaddondo & Busiro In The 2026 Masaza Cup: A Reintroduction of xG-Lite

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[LONG READ ALERT]

Greetings. Ugandan rugby (and East African rugby) has been through a dark period, with the unfortunate passing of Pirates' utility forward, Sydney Gyabi Gongodyo on 05th June 2026. In his honour, Black Pirates retired the #7 jersey, which he wore in his last ever game for the Bweyogerere-based outfit. I wish to thank all those who stood by his family and Pirates through the difficult period. In due course, we shall communicate our special way of commemorating him. For further information about the steps to be taken moving forward the Pirates social media channels are best placed to provide accurate information on that (Official pages on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube; and the Fans pages on Twitter and Instagram). May he continue to rest in peace. 

The Most Interesting Football Tournament in the World

As the 2026 Rugby Premiership draws to a close, the 20th edition of the Masaza Cup gets underway this weekend. The Masaza Cup is the flagship football competition of Buganda Kingdom, contested by the 18 counties that make up the modern-day kingdom. The Luganda word Saza (plural Masaza) - and its Lunyoro relative Isaza - formerly referred to a province but in modern day speak it means "county" thanks to decades of colonial corruption of African languages.

The first iteration of the tournament was played during the colonial era, as the inter-county football compatriot to the Kabaka's Cup (which was open to any club in Buganda). After a 39-year hiatus, it was revived in 2004, with Gomba winning the tournament. The success of the tournament has inspired other cultural regions to establish versions of the "Masaza" Cup; the Bunyoro Masaza Cup, Busoga Masaza Cup, Tooro Masaza Cup and the Ankole Cup. Even the region-themed FUFA Drum Cup is a nationwide version of the Masaza Cup. 

The three things of interest to me about the tournament are, firstly, how the tournament pays homage to the provinces that made up Buganda of old. It's a joy to see people expressing pride in affiliation to regional names like Kyaddondo, Buddu, Busiro, Butambala, Gomba, and others. Even the groups into which the teams are divided are named Muganzirwazza (homage to the Queen Mother of Mutesa I), Bulange (in homage to the seat of the Lukiiko - the centuries old Grand Council of the Kingdom) and Masengere (the place where the Kabaka traditionally heard the appeals of his subjects). The County chiefs (still using their traditional titles; Ppokino for Buddu, Ssekiboobo for Kyaggwe, Kaggo for Kyaddondo, etc), play an active role in mobilising resources to enable their respective teams compete favourably.

Secondly, each county fields one team and thus the tournament has had the same 18 teams playing since 2004 with no relegation or promotion. Absence of relegation basically means the same data variables can be collected about the same 18 teams over a long period of time. The only equivalent tournaments are the Gaelic Athletic Association's All Ireland championships in Gaelic Football and Hurling - which pit the different Irish counties against each other every year, and the County Cricket Championship in England - established in 1890 with 9 counties but has had the same 18 counties taking part since 1992. 

The third point of interest about this particular tournament is how the share of titles is not skewed to the centrally located teams. Kyaddondo (what I shall call the "Kampala" Saza) and Busiro (the "Entebbe-Wakiso" saza) have the benefit of being located in the central part of Uganda. However, they have won only 2 of the 20 titles played since 2004. By comparison, all the Uganda Premier League titles in that period have gone to Kampala and Wakiso teams (22) except for the 2005 title that went to Police FC, then based in Jinja. 

Kyaddondo and Busiro

Figure 1: Map of Buganda Counties [Source: Michael Twaddle (1993)]

In his Empisa za Baganda [translated by Ernest Kalibala, 1934], Apolo Kagwa stated about Kyaddondo: 

"The people in this county were perhaps the most intelligent in the kingdom ... The county was, however, not a wealthy one, and though [the county chief was the highest ranking one in the country] he was often surpassed by others in wealth, because he could not raise as much in taxes." 

This description is very revealing about Kyaddondo's Masaza Cup success, when you substitute the intelligence for GDP wealth. Kyaddondo are centrally located (Kampala and parts of Wakiso - the wealthiest regions of the country), with some of the best sports grounds complemented by a wealth of migratory talent to Kampala, and yet with all these benefits, they have only managed 1 Masaza Cup title in 20 years. Indeed the most central counties of Busiro and Kyaddondo have combined for 2 Masaza Cup titles (Busiro were winners in 2022) whereas nine of the last ten titles have been shared between Buddu (on the western periphery of the Kingdom - 3 times),  Bulemezi (on the northern boundary of Kyaddondo - twice), Gomba (130 km outside Kampala - twice), and Ssingo (whose capital is Mityana - twice).

For this year's tournament, I'll pay keen attention to the fortunes of the two most central counties. Their location more than the lack of success is the impetus behind their choice. In the opening game of the season this Saturday, Kyaddondo travel to Mubende to face the defending champions, Buweekula. The two teams are in Bulange group, alongside Buddu, Buluuli, Busujju and Buvuma. Busiro are in Masengere group, contesting against Bulemeezi, Gomba, Kyaggwe, Mawokota and Ssesse.


 

Buweekula have won each of the last 5 meetings between the two teams, scoring 9 goals to Kyaddondo's 2. The pre-tournament model has Buweekula as favourites, the highest rated team over the 3-year Masaza Cup performance. Of the last 3 teams to win the title, only Buweekula has made the quarterfinal stage each season since 2023, and they have advanced past that stage in the last 2 seasons. Kyaddondo have made the quarterfinal twice since 2023, advancing to the semifinal in 2024, but failed to make it out of the group stage last year. 

Reintroducing xG-lite

I have previously covered Masaza Cup, or one game of the tournament. In the opening game of the 2024 tournament, Buluuli upset the defending champions Bulemeezi in a 1-0 win.


The micro-level coverage for this year's tournament will revolve around the lite expected goal model developed for our football coverage moving forward. I introduced a lite-expectations model last year in rugby, measuring the performance of goal kickers in the 2025 Rugby Premiership. 

As with the rugby version where the ingredient shots were collected from rugby games in Tier 2 and 3 countries (including Uganda), the xG-lite ingredients have been collected from football games around the African continent.

 

Of the leagues and competitions observed, the Namilyango League is played with seven players on either side, and a narrower pitch compared to the FIFA standard pitches in the other competitions. Nevertheless, the data pool demonstrates that a given shot on target has a 23.6% chance of yielding a goal.

In this model, I zeroed in on 12 shooting locations that I assigned xG. As a demonstration and ease of comparison, the penalty spot is the easiest location to gather data when building a rudimentary expectations model. From the data, the penalty kick has an xG-lite of 0.67, meaning there is a 67% chance a penalty will be converted (the saves by Sundowns' Ronwen Williams and FAS Rabat's Bechir Ben Saïd in the 2026 CAF Champions League final were detrimental to that computation). Comparing with established sports analytics firms, our penalty spot xG-lite assignment is 0.11 off the StatsBomb penalty xG of 0.78.

 

The main reason for the difference lies in the amount of ingredient data. Stats Bomb and Stats Perform conduct an observation of 1,000 shots per location to conclusively come to the 78% to 79% likelihood of a penalty being converted. Of the games observed for my model, penalty attempts constituted 5.3%; to yield 1,000 penalty attempts, the observed shots have to be increased to 20,000 or  1,000 games if each game has an average of 20 shots! In due course this shall be attained.

The model is retrospectively applied to the 2024/25 Uganda Premier League game between SC Vipers and Soltilo Bright Stars.


For the 2026 Masaza Cup, a micro-level coverage of the tournament will be conducted with specialised focus on the central counties of Kyaddondo and Busiro. When need arises there will be a weekly update provided. The very best of luck to all 18 teams.

Ceteris. Paribus.

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