Port Harcourt Conquers Nigeria at ARS 3 National Finals
It was double victory for the Port
Harcourt contingent to the National Championship of the on-going season three
of the Airtel Rising Stars National U-17 Tournament as their male and female
teams emerged national champions in their respective categories.
The South teams defeated their
counterparts from Ibadan in the final matches played at the Agege Township
Stadium, Lagos on Sunday.
In the final female match decided
earlier, defending champion, Port Harcourt emerged 2-1 victorious over their
opponents from Ibadan to retain the trophy for the third season. Action had
started with more play concentrated in the mid-field as the two teams struggled
to coordinate play. Port Harcourt however recorded the first corner of the
match and a goal mouth scramble in the 9th minute, but nothing came
out of both. Incursions into the Ibadan vital area were becoming too many for
comfort, and they paid for this when Edore Agbude beat goal keeper Abubakar
Ajimoh in the 20th minute to put team Port Harcourt ahead.
The goal did spur on the South team
as they began the second half pressing further to increase the tally, and they
almost did so in the 23rd minute but for the timely intervention of
goal keeper Ajimoh.
They were however, pegged back when
Joy Falegon popped up to nod home a cross and secured the much needed
equalizer.
As the match wore on, it appeared the
winner might be decided via penalty kicks until the dying seconds of the last
minute when John Imeh Obong drove home a long range effort that beat
out-positioned goal keeper Abubakar Ajimoh.
In the male final match, the Port
Harcourt team took off from where their female counterparts left off as they
reclaimed the trophy they last won two seasons ago at Campos Square.
Olu Gabriel, who has been one of the
revelations of the Championship, put his team ahead in the first half of the
highly technical match.
The second half began with the
Oluyole boys appearing to have found the missing link in their play. They
showed more determination obviously in a bid to cancel out the lone goal
disadvantage. Their efforts could not pay despite repeated attempts to draw
level with team Port Harcourt.
In the third place matches played
earlier, Kaduna defeated FCT Queens 5-4 to retain the trophy they won last
season in the female category while team Lagos won their first ever ARS medal
5-3 against their Kaduna counterparts.
12 male and female teams totalling 192
players drawn from six zones across the nation featured in the three-day
Championship which began on Friday.
Tournament partners, Youth Sports
Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) and the Nigeria Football Coaches Association
(NFCA) form an independent team of assessors including grassroots coaches to
oversee technical concerns during the championship.
The Airtel Rising Stars U-17 Tourney, in its
third year running, is a pan African initiative of Airtel Africa, designed to
provide support for the development of football talents across African markets.
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