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Both Geoffrey Lwesibawa and Karim Watambala scored from freekicks for their sides in the second half as Vipers SC and Express FC played out to an entertaining 1-all draw in the StarTimes Uganda Premier League game played at the Betway Muteesa II Stadium-Wankulukuku on Tuesday evening.
The home side, Express FC dominated almost the larger part of the opening half and had the game’s first shot on target in the 25th minute after a splitting pass from Daniel Shabene found Godfrey Lwesibawa in Vipers penalty who quickly dribbled past Livingstone Mulondo and brilliantly set-up Eric Kabaale.
Kambaale controlled sent in a teasing shot for Vipers’ goalie Fabien Mutombora who came off the line to acrobatically save the shot with his legs.
Express continued to impose a lot of pressure on the Vipers backline and were gifted a chance to break the deadlock once again, but Lwesibawa failed to connect with the ball after he was put through by a Mathias Muwanga’s looped ball.
The game went into the halftime break with the scores still tied after both teams failed to get past each other.
Five minutes into the second stanza, Express FC head coach Wasswa Bbosa made a direct change up front, bringing on George Ssenkaaba for the already tired Frank Kalanda.
The deadlock was finally broken by the Red Eagles in the 57th minute when Godfrey Lwesibawa’s exquisite freekick from outside the box caught Mutombora unaware in the Vipers’ goal.
Two minutes later, through another freekick, the Venoms levelled matters after Yunus Sentamu was fouled just outside the Express penalty area. Youngster Karim Watambala stepped up and carefully curved the ball over the defensive wall and into the bottom right corner to level matters before the half-hour mark.
Vipers then wasted two chances to find the game’s winner, with the first Substitute Allan Kayiwa putting his shot wide after Paul Willa cross into the box in the 64th minute.
In the 67th minute, Congolese forward Cesar Manzoki nodded agonizingly wide after former Express FC fullback Disan Galiwango found him unmarked.
Trying to find the winner, Wasswa Bbosa introduced on January recruit Muzamir Mutyaba and Abel Eturude while Vipers SC head coach Fred Kajoba brought on David Bagoole and Lawrence Tezikya for Yunus Sentamu and Cesar Manzoki respectively.
However, none could generate an impact in order to find the winner late on in the game.
With a point today, Vipers SC has failed to go top of the log and now sit second with 11 points, one below leaders UPDF FC, while Express FC now move to nine points collected in five games.
