Kampala Capital City Authority Football Club Head Coach Mike Mutebi believes that the Ugandan champions have learned their lessons and are hungry to make the CAF Champions League group stage.
KCCA FC begin their continental campaign away at Madagascar's CNaPS Sport in the preliminary round on Saturday before the return leg in two weeks, with Mutebi confident that it will be the starting point for a successful campaign.
"The other teams in Africa are not really much better than us, but our players must have belief in themselves," Mutebi told KweséESPN. "We came close to making it to the group stage of the Champions League last year, but conceded a late goal to South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns.
"We have learnt our lessons and now have well blended team that can cause shocks in Africa," he added. "We are now hungry and raring to go with the target of making it to the group stage of the Champions League.
"We have had a number of build-up games in Kenya in the last two weeks, and the Uganda Cup game we played last weekend has also given us a lot of stability in the team."
KCCA were defeated by 3-2 on aggregate by Sundowns in the First Round of last year's Champions League, but proceeded to make the group stage of the CAF Confederation Cup, where they gave a good account of themselves.
"We now have what it takes because we have kept building and will also ride on last year's exposure," he added. "Last year we had a societal problem where Ugandans did not believe we could perform well because we were facing seasoned and tested clubs, but now we are ready."
However, KCCA will have to deal without last year's stalwarts Issac Muleme, Geoffrey Sserunkuma, Tom Masiko and Ivan Ntege, who have all departed, while Benjamin Ochan has not been registered for the competition. The goalkeeper has been linked with a move to the Zambian Premier League.
The team will look to key players like Derrick Nsibambi, scorer of the Cranes' only goal at the 2018 African Nations Championship, Ibrahim Saddam Juma and striker Muhammad Shaban, who was the top scorer in the 2017 COSAFA U-20 Championship that took place in Zambia last December, as they look to reach the final 16 of Africa's top club competition.