Sunshine Stars Football Club of Akure opened their Nigeria Premier League (NPL) season with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Kano Pillars Football Club on Saturday.
The match, played at the Ondo State Sports Complex in Akure, saw Sunshine Stars take the lead in the 8th minute through Oge Emmanuel.
The home side controlled the rest of the match and created several chances to double their advantage, but they were unable to do so.
Sunshine Stars head coach, Edith Agoye, was pleased with his team’s performance, praising their technical ability and dominance of the match.
He also admitted that his team needed to improve their goal scoring ability, but he was confident that they could measure up with any team in the league.
“We are very happy that we scored a very good goal against Pillars,” Agoye said in a post-match interview.
“We created so many scoring chances, and our opponents were unable to have any clear chance against us.”
Agoye admitted that his team needed to improve on their goal scoring ability, but he was confident that they could measure up with any team in the league.
“We will go back to the training ground to improve on our goal scoring ability,” he said.
“We have a good team, and we are confident that we can do well this season.”
Hard luck
Kano Pillars head coach, Abdul Maikaba, was disappointed with his team’s performance, lamenting their mistakes and lack of clear chances.
“We didn’t play well today,” Maikaba said in a post-match interview.
“We made too many mistakes, and we were punished for it.”
“We need to learn from our mistakes and improve our performance. We have a lot of quality players in our team, and I am confident that we can bounce back from this.”
He said his team would go back to the drawing board to address their weaknesses and improve their performance in the coming matches.
Overall, a positive start to the season for Sunshine Stars, while Kano Pillars will be looking to bounce back in their next game.
