Nigerian Football
Nigeria’s Championship Playoff turns ‘Festival of draws
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
Perhaps nothing draws better than the ongoing Nigeria Super 6 league.
With more than half of the projected 15-match series of the Nigeria Premier League Championship play-off already played, there have been more drawn games than victories.
With nine of the projected 15 matches played as at MatchDay 3, only two have been won while seven have been drawn encounters.
The only victories have been the 1-0 defeat of Lobi Stars by Enyimba and Rivers United beating Sunshine Stars 1-0.
No team has been able to double a lead. In nine matches, only 16 goals have been scored.
That nine matches produced just 16 goals, an average of 1.7 per match, speaks volume of the attacking potency of Nigerian clubs jostling for continental slots in the coming months.
It means that the top three clubs will have to engage in massive recruitment of strikers, even outside the country’s shores if they are to make marks at continental competitions instead of the annual rituals of merely making up the numbers of attendees.
So far, the most goal-laden matches have been played by Remo Stars who twice played 2-2 draws against Enyimba and Rivers United.
Considering their 1-1 draw with Sunshine Stars, they are the team with most goals, having put in five.
Paradoxically, they have also conceded as many goals as they have scored!
In the ‘festival of draws’, Bendel Insurance are the kingpins. In the current season, they have the best record of having not lost a match.
But a flashback into the main league reveals they have drawn 11 of their last 12 matches – perhaps a record. Such a gloomy consistency is inconsistent for a side dreaming of continental exploit.
With fluctuating fortunes, the championship play-off may be heading for a photo-finish. At different points, different teams have temporarily occupied the top of the table.
When Enyimba scored from the penalty spot in the opening match of the play-off, they shot to the top of the table only to be equalled by Remo Stars after the latter put final scoreline at 2-2.
Then came defending champions, Rivers United whose 1-0 defeat of Sunshine Stars catapulted them to the summit of the table.
They remained there after the Match Day 1 before they were displaced by Enyimba, following a MatchDay 2 defeat of Lobi Stars in the only other won match of the series so far.
Ever since, it has been a spate of draws. When Remo Stars shot ahead in the 12th minute of their ‘Star War’ with Sunshine Stars, they jumped to to the top of the table as their point-haul went to five.
But it turned a temporary occupation that lasted just 34 minutes as Sunshine Stars pulled them back to the third position.
The Nigeria U17 women’s team has been given incentives to make it to the Women’s World Cup for the eighth time.
The team, Flamingos, who arrived in Algiers in the early hours of Wednesday aboard a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, are highly inspired by the imminence of another FIFA World Cup ticket as well as further financial windfall from the Nigeria Football Federation and billionaire business mogul Kunle Soname.
Soname gifted the young players and their officials the sum of N4 million (one million naira for every goal) following their commanding win over the North Africans at the Remo Stars Stadium on Saturday, while the NFF gave out the sum of N2 million (five hundred thousand naira for every goal).
President of NFF, Ibrahim Musa Gusau and Soname have both confirmed that the same financial incentives are in place for the second leg in Blida on Friday.
“Our objective is clear – to win the FIFA World Cup ticket. That is the big motivation.
“Yet, we have been further incentivised by the monetary rewards. My girls will go all out on Friday night,” Head Coach Bankole Olowookere said.
Olowookere, who led the Flamingos to their last two World Cup ventures, will most likely rely on first-leg two-goal heroine Queen Joseph, lone-goal scorer Zainab Raji and Kaosarat Olanrewaju to start at the fore, with Shakirat Moshood, Muinat Rotimi and Philomena Isaiah supplying the passes from the midfield.
Goalkeeper and captain Christiana Uzoma and defenders Azeezat Oduntan, Hannah Ibrahim, Christiana Sunday and Jumai Adebayo are also likely to start.
The Confederation of African Football has selected Cameroonian official Marie Noelle Etong to be the referee, with her compatriots Marcelle Teikeu and Innocentia Ntangti as assistant referee 1 and fourth official, respectively, while Chadian Ngarassoum Victorine will be assistant referee 2.
Oumou Souleymane Kane from Mauritania will be the commissioner, and Sabelo Maphosa-Sibindi from Zimbabwe will be in the role of referee assessor.
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Former president of the initially 15-member West African Football Union (WAFU), Chief Jonathan Boytie Ogufere, has expressed his heartfelt condolences over the recent death of former national team captain and coach, Christian ‘Chairman’ Chukwu.
He remarked that the erstwhile Enugu Rangers’ defence stalwart will ‘be dearly missed’. In a personally signed letter of condolence, Ogufere described Chukwu, who died on Saturday, April 12, in Enugu after a brief illness at 74, as a ‘hero of our time and a friend’.
The nonagenarian recalled with nostalgia how he nearly recruited the young Chukwu for his P & T Vasco da Gama Football Club of Enugu, adding he was impressed with how the ‘Field Marshal Christian Chukwuemeka ‘Chairman ‘ Chukwu (MFR), conducted himself throughout his career as he led both the national team, the then Green Eagles and his beloved Enugu Rangers to many conquests.
“I join numerous others to mourn the transition of the legendary Christian Chukwu, a hero of our time and friend,” the Ugbugba of Okpe Kingdom wrote.
“As one of the young academicals discovered after the end of the Civil War in 1970, I tried to enlist into my club, the P & T Vasco da Gama Football Club of Enugu but he was fair and frank in informing me that he had already joined Enugu Ranges Football Club, and I respected that attitude. From the rivalries between the two clubs, his exploits as a central defender were very visible.”
He continued: “Christian Chukwu emerged at the national level as a trustworthy and formidable captain of the national team who led by example.
“He was one of the heroes during the Golden age of Nigerian football when I was one of the Board Members of the Nigeria Football Association under the chairmanship of Chief Sunday Dankaro as Nigeria won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1980 for the first time where Christian Chukwu as captain of the Green Eagles was declared the best player of the tournament. He led the national team in several battles, which endeared him to millions of football lovers.
“After his playing days, he showed his talents through coaching in Nigeria and abroad.
“I express my sincere condolences to the family he left behind, the football family and the country in general. He will be dearly missed.
“May the good Lord grant his noble soul eternal rest,” he noted.
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Remo Stars are coasting to what will be their greatest moment ever, a win of the Nigeria Premier Football League title, as they recorded a 1-0 win over Shooting Stars in Ibadan in a match played behind closed doors.
In doing so, they achieved their sixth double of the season, having earlier beaten Shooting Stars in the first stanza of the league.
They maintained the seven-point lead over second-placed Rivers United, who also beat Sunshine Stars 1-0 in Port Harcourt.
After a ding-dong affair, Alex Oyowah scored the vital goal for Remo Stars from a right-wing cross from Ismail Sodiq.
In another match, Ikorodu City continued to work tenaciously to obtain a continental ticket as they held El Kanemi to a 1-1 draw.
SUNDAY RESULTS
- El Kanemi 1-1 Ikorodu City
- Niger Tornados 1-1 Bayelsa United
- Heartland 0-0 Kwara United
- Plateau United 1-0 Akwa United
- Rivers United 1-0 Sunshine Stars
- Shooting Stars 0-1 Remo Stars
- Bendel United 1-1 Nasarawa United
SATURDAY
- Katsina United 0-0 Abia Warriors
- Enyimba 2-1 Kano Pillars
- Lobi Stars 2-4 Enugu Rangers
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