KCCA FC manager Mike Mutebi will on December 8th mark 100 league games as KCCA FC manager in his third stint at the Lugogo club.
Mutebi who was on Friday night crowned as the coach of the year at the 2018 Airtel FUFA Awards for a third straight year has been in charge of 99 league games already, a milestone that has garnered two league title.
Out of the 99 league games he has been in charge of, Mutebi has won 59, drawn 28 and lost only 12, scoring 161 goals and conceding 72 in the process.
He didn’t know how close he was to the century mark when Football256 asked him how it felt to have achieved the milestone.
“Wow a century?” Mutebi asked with a beaming smile on his face before adding.
“It has been very interesting and pleasing, That shows stability. And I am very surprised I hadn’t taken into consideration of the 100 mark.”
Mutebi rejoined KCCA FC in 2015 with Sam Ssimbwa as his assistant, in came Morley Byekwaso forming a winning team with Badru Kaddu, Jackson Magera, Richard Malinga and Daniel Kiwanuka was the goalkeeping coach.
And all together, they have witnessed first hard players growing from one level to another while also paying attention to improving them.
“We have encouraged the players to take the game more serious because it’s a job, it’s a career and I think that’s the most accomplished thing we have done over the years with my colleagues because you can’t achieve this alone,” he said before adding.
“It has been progressive, the team has been improving since we took over, the mentality of players, the ethos.”
“It’s very exciting and we are proud of the human beings we have managed to prepare and nurture over those years,” he said.
Mutebi also concedes that the journey full of success wouldn’t have been achieved if certain things hadn’t been put in place.
“Putting structures in place also helped me to work in a conducive environment but implement what I believe in and it has brought us this far.”
Mutebi time and again has preached the gospel of football belonging to the elite class and insists finally the mindset is starting to change.
“We have managed to give the belief that football belongs to people who are organized and doesn’t belong to people who have failed in life like most people think, and we won’t stop until we get the respect we deserve as football people,”
Apparently Mutebi doesn’t have a lowest moment in the league, but on the continent.
‘My lowest was when we lost to Al Ahly (4-3) away in Alexandria, we were not supposed to have lost that game. I was very confident that we were going to win and win comfortably but it didn’t happen, it’s the lowest,” he says with alot of sadness on his face.
But thereafter his face lights up when asked to reveal his highest moment, still it’s not in the league.
“The highest moment was to usher in a young Allan Okello and give him an international debut away from home at sixteen years and the kid didn’t not disappoint me as he continues to grow organically without being fazed.”
Okello had just scored a hatrick against Onduparaka on his league debut in the 7-0 thriller before making a continental debut against then reigning African champions Mamelodi Sundowns in Pretoria.
It’s at that time that the two time Uganda premier league coach of the the year remembers that success on the pitch also brought him a lot of joy.
“Also winning all these trophies we have won which were not fixed, because all the trophies that were being won in the past were fixed, even here at KCCA, at Villa, at Express, they were fixed.”
Apart from the two league titles, Mutebi has guided KCCA FC to the Stanbic Uganda Cup and three Super Cup titles.
“But it was very pleasing to win all the trophies we have won without them being fixed. That has exemplified by KCCA FC performing well on the continent because we weren’t aided, everything we achieved was out of effort.”
Under Mutebi, KCCA FC played on the group stages of the CAF confederation Cup in 2017 and also the Champions League group stages in 2018
