Madiba Football Club of Oshodi have emerged as the 2016 champions of the late Coach Yemi Tella/NIS Annual Futsal Cup after defeating Moving Train FC 4-1 in a thrilling final game inside the NIS Gymnasium on Friday.
Goals from Fadeyi Sunday, Ikechi Peter and a double from Isiaka Abayomi cancelled out the opener from Moving Train’s Seyi Adepoju who scored the curtain raiser early in the second half after a tight first half had produced no goals.
To get to the final, Madiba defeated Seasiders 3-0; battered Divine FC 9-0 but were held to a 0-0 draw John Dadi FC and another 1-1 with Roy FC. In the quarter finals they beat Jimmy Tiger 3-0 and won the semis 2-0 against Fem Stars. They scored 18 goals and conceded just one.
Moving Train were even more ruthless, winning all six with a whopping 22 goals scored and two conceded. In the preliminaries, they opened their competition with a 3-0 bashing of Rising Stars; walloped Igando FC 6-1 and handed out identical 3-0 defeats to Nigeria Info and Folamadu respectively. In the quarterfinals, they beat Gbagada 3-1 and John Dadi were thrashed 4-0 in the semis for a whopping 22 goals scored and just two conceded.
In her remarks after the final, proprietor of Madiba FC Alhaja Basirat Adeyemi expressed her delight at the victory and promised that the team will only get better and better.
“We have worked very hard to get here but we are not going to relax. This is the result of hardwork on the part of the coaches and determination of the players to excel. We are not new to winning things but this trophy is doubly satisfying because of the personality whose memory we are honouring,” she said.
The competition, established in honour of the memory of the former coach of the 2007 victorious Golden Eaglets team which won the FIFA U-17 title in South Korea and also a former lecturer at the National Institute for Sports, also doubles as the climax of activities marking the annual students’ week of the Institute.
COMMENTS