Sports
Ughelli Pre-Season Cup Semi-Finals Hold, Today
Semi Final matches of the 11th edition of the Ughelli. Pre-Season Cup competition hold today with Go-Round FC of Omoku and Goddosky FC of Nnewi at the Ughelli Township Stadium, Delta State.
T Amako FC of Warri and Excellent FC of Ughelli are among teams to play in the Semi-finals encounter. The tournament which started Sunday, January 15 is expected to end tomorrow.
According to the organiser of the competition, Coach Onome James, the competition so far has been good, as teams have displayed high levels of discipline and understanding, saying that this year’s edition was a huge success.
“I will rate it 85%. We expected more than eight league teams but due to the Nigeria National League (NNL) which is expected to kick off 30th January, also, most teams did not turn up for financial reasons, but this year’s Ughelli Pre-Season Cup was a great success,” he noted.
He said the competition had just discovered a young talent, Emmanuel Peters, who is 16 years and from Team, Ivory Coast. whom he described as a fantastic attacking midfielder was discovered during the competition.
“We have discovered a few talents during the tournament, Emmanuel Peters is one of them, he is good at what he does, he is a fantastic attacking midfielder and will do better in the future if well groomed,” Coach James added.
The competition is played to immortalised Late Prince Anthony Obaseki, one of the finest sports journalists of his times and a publicity officer of the Ughelli Pre-Season Cup.
The aim of the Ughelli Pre-Season tournament is for the Nigeria National League (NNL) and Nigeria Nation Wide (NLO) Clubs prepare themselves ahead of the up-coming (NNL) and (NLO) 2021 leagues season.
Winners and runners up are to cart away the sum of N150,000 and N100,000 respectively.
By: Nancy Briggs
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor