Alex Isabirye has been around Ugandan football long enough to know that an unbeaten run in November does not win a league title.
His message after Bul’s 2-1 victory over SC Villa on Tuesday was, therefore, less about celebrating their growing stature and more about keeping his players grounded.
“We are unbeaten, but I’m not thinking too much of that,” the Bul coach told the Daily Monitor.
“My target is, as I told you before the league started, that we are going to do our best to see that we look for three points in each and every game we play.”
It is a suitably pragmatic position from a man whose playing career was built around the business of scoring goals rather than decorating football matches.
A former striker with SC Villa, Isabirye has carried some of that efficiency into his coaching.
Winning the big ones
Bul may not always be the most aesthetically pleasing side in the league, but they have developed an appetite for getting the job done, particularly when the stakes have been raised this season.
The Villa result was significant beyond the three points. It was Bul’s second victory over a direct title rival in the space of two weeks, having earlier beaten Nec at the same venue.
It also dislodged Villa from the summit, with Bul moving to 23 points, level with Nec, while the Jogoos drop to third on 21. Bul, however, have a game in hand on both rivals.
It is an increasingly compelling position for a team whose coach remains reluctant to entertain title talk.
They are doing enough to make themselves relevant to the title conversation, even if their coach would rather postpone that discussion.
The upcoming international break offers a natural pause for reflection before the league resumes, with the first round concluding in December and the second round providing the final push in the new year.
The wider scheduling objective is to finish the competition early enough for Uganda’s preparations for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations.
For Bul, however, the immediate business is considerably more demanding.
Isabirye returns to Kitende
Their next assignment is a November 18 visit to defending champions Vipers, where the stakes carry an additional personal dimension for Isabirye.
He returns to a club he helped deliver a league and Uganda Cup double, but this time in the opposing dugout, with Bul’s ambitions increasingly putting pressure on the established order.
Vipers, meanwhile, will be looking to arrest a run of two successive defeats, with their last three points – a 5-0 away win at Kataka – coming on October 15.
Having already accounted for Nec and Villa, Bul have an opportunity to inflict further damage on another contender and make an even stronger statement about their intentions.
The scheduling also explains why the domestic league will continue even as the international window remains open.
Following Uganda’s home qualifier against Botswana in Hoima on November 14, the Cranes travel for the return leg on November 17, allowing selected StarTimes Uganda Premier League fixtures to proceed on November 18, 19 and 20.
The away assignment is expected to involve largely foreign-based players, while the number of domestic league representatives in the squad is unlikely to meet the three-player threshold under the competition regulations for postponing a club fixture.
Vipers’ Hillary Mukundane, SC Villa’s David Lukwago and Frank Ssebufu, KCCA’s Herbert Achayi and Entebbe UPPC’s Jonathan Odongo are among the domestic-based players in contention, although none is an established first-choice Cranes regular.