Greetings. The 2026/27 season of the Uganda Premier League kicked off last weekend. This edition is the 59th top flight football league tournament in Uganda. In preceding seasons not much has been done on our end about football coverage (the planned coverage of the Masaza Cup had to be shelved, again). In preparation for the 2026/27 season, a micro-level observation was conducted on Sports Club Villa.
Founded in 1975 - seven years after the founding of the country's top football division, Villa have gone on to win the most League titles of any club in the country. They are one of 2 Ugandan clubs to reach the final of the African Champion Clubs' Cup (the predecessor to the CAF Champions League).
However, with all this success they have only one 1 League title in the last 20 years (2023/24).
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| Courtesy: x.com/Gad_lee |
This article provides some updates on the progress of building an archival football database. Firstly, is the record from last season's games - both individual and aggregated. Finally, a look into performance measures around shot-quality, as evidenced from Villa's opening game in the UPL.
2025/26 Performance
The Ugandan football calendar has 3 main domestic tournaments; the Uganda Premier League, the Uganda Cup and the FUFA Super 8 tournament. In the 2025/26 season, SC Villa were the only club to play in every round of each of those tournaments, tallying a total of 41 games after reaching both finals of the Uganda Cup and the FUFA Super 8. The club won 65.9% of its games in the 2025/26 season, clinching one title (the Super 8).
In every aspect possible, the club showed improvement on the preceding season where they were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Super 8, exited at the quarterfinal stage of the Uganda Cup after a 1-0 defeat to eventual winners Vipers SC, and failing to defend the Uganda Premier League title with a sixth place finish.
Admittedly aggregated statistics are easier to collect compared to individual statistics. There is still some information to be compiled for the Super 8 tournament but the individual contributions per player in the UPL and Uganda Cup were fully compiled. The two most crucial parameters that each player contributes to, irrespective of their position of play, are whether a player started a game and whether a player played a game. Each individual player named a starter in a game automatically counts as a featured player. For the players on the bench, they would have to be substituted onto the pitch to tally an appearance for that game. Of the club's 37 games in the UPL and the Uganda Cup, two players made 36 appearances; Raymon Barasa Mangoli and Najib Yiga. Yiga started 34 games, including 27 in UPL whereas Barasa started 32 including 25 in the UPL. Barasa however had more minutes, playing a total of 3,003 minutes to Yiga's 2,598. Considering how rarely a goalkeeper is substituted, it is rare for an outfield player to record the most minutes for a football club. David Lukwago was Villa's goalkeeper for 34 games, playing a total of 3,140 minutes, the most of any Villa player last season.
In goal scoring, Frank Ssebuufu scored the most goals for the club, netting all his 9 goals in the 27 UPL games he played. Ssebuufu reached the 5 goal mark in 15 games. Similar to the per-80 efficiency stat used in rugby, we opted for the per-90 efficiency stat. Ssebuufu had a 0.33 goal per 90 (he scores 0.33 goals for every 90 minutes he plays). Charles Lwanga, who only started 2 games, had the best goal per 90 for SC Villa. Lwanga ended the season with 1.25 goals per 90, having scored 6 goals in his 12 appearances. He averaged 36 minutes per game. Andrew Otim was the closest to Lwanga, with a 0.69 goal per 90, for his 5 goals in the 27 games (despite averaging 24 minutes per game).
In the creative department, Najib Yiga was the club's assist leader, recording 6 assists in his 36 games. Yiga notched his 5th assist in his 26th game of the season. Yiga had a 0.21 assist per-90 efficiency, only one of three players to record an assist-per 90 of 0.21 or more. Ibrahim Kasinde had the highest assist per 90, ending the season with 0.27.
When combining goals and assists, Ssebuufu and Yiga had the most goal involvements for Villa, each being involved in 14 goals.
In the realm of discipline, SC Villa players received 4 red cards in their 41 games of 2025/26. Sula Matovu was shown red in the 89th minute of the club's first UPL game of the season, a 1-2 loss to KCCA FC. The other three red cards were to Geoffrey Lubangakene, James Brady Wokorach and Farouk Matovu, with Wokorach receiving the red card in the 32nd minute of the Uganda Cup quarterfinal against Pallisa Hospital - the earliest a Villa player was shown red in a game last season.
Villa players were shown a yellow card a combined 50 times in both the UPL and Uganda Cup. Simon Kato Ssemayange was shown yellow on 6 occasions.
Shot Quality in the 2026/27 UPL
Looking to the future, shots (both total and on-target) and shot location are to be incorporated in the database. Analysis in this aspect will build on the xG-lite model built for the 2026 Masaza Cup.
From the first game of the season between SC Villa and Kitara FC, we see that Reagan Mpande was the best performer on xG-lite, accumulating 0.32 xG-lite from the 62 minutes he played. Villa's goal in the 1-1 draw came from Andrew Okumu, who generated 0.25 xG-lite in the entire game. Over the course of the game, Villa conceded 0.95 xG-lite.
From the second game of the season, Villa edged URA FC 1-0 to record their first win of the season. Reagan Mpande had the only goal of the game. From his 2 games played so far, Mpande has generated 0.66 xG-lite and scored one goal.
From the xg-Lite progression chart, URA were more threatening in the opening 15 minutes, thanks to shots by Emmanuel Oula and Dissan Galiwango. Villa converted their best chance, with Reagan Mpande's goal to take the lead and also lead on xG-lite for the first time (0.57 to Villa, 0.43 to URA at 23:10).
Defensively, Villa conceded 1.97 xG-lite. It is notable that 0.84 xG-lite was conceded after the 80th minute as URA pushed for an equaliser. By comparison, Villa only generated 0.36 xG-lite in that same period. The Villa defence did a better job against URA than in the opener against Kitara, recording their first clean sheet and first win of the season.
What Lies Ahead
The shot-quality parameter cannot be built for games played in the past seasons, but a sizeable amount of it for the 2026/2027 season shall be tracked. The core data on appearances and goal contributions from the 3-5 years preceding the current season will be built over the course of the next months. This should enable a comparison of last season's performance with the most recent seasons.
Ceteris. Paribus.
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