Women’s Federation Cup defending Champions, Rivers Angels of Port Harcourt progressed to the quarter finals of the competition defeating COD Ladies of Lagos, 4-1 in the round of 16 encounter.
Mercy Amanze opened scoring on the 13th minute and three minutes later, Ayila Loveth slotted in the second goal.
And on the 40th minute, Ijeoma Emenike headed in a cross from Mabel Effiom to extend the lead to 3-0 before half time.
However, Monday Gift gave the Ann Chiejine led team a goal on the 47th minute but the highly spirited Angels kept up the pressure on their opponents as Ijeoma completed her brace on the 65th minute to seal the deserved victory for the Edwin Okon tutored side.
The last time both teams met at this stage, it ended 6-1 in favour of Rivers Angels and Coach Edwin Okon believes his opponents have improved
“I thank God for the victory, FA cup is not a thing that you joke over and I have seen improvements in the team because we played them last year and there’s improvement this year, last year it was six, today is four so I want to say there’s improvement” Okon stated.
“We are the defending champions you can as well see the way the team plays, we’ll try as much as we can, some of our players are in the U-20 that are supposed to beef up the team but all the same we can’t stop the national assignment; we just make do with what we have to get to the finals, our target is just the cup because we’re the defending champions”
“We want to win it for the sixth time, we’ve won it five good times, I think if we win this, it will be the sixth time” He added.
Mercy Amanze who opened scoring for the team equally gave her thoughts after the game.
“Am so so happy for the victory, I have been putting in some extra training because of this competition, I always love playing in the Federations cup since I started my football career game” Said Amanze.
“ I am happy and I love the way my team played, we played in unity and God granted us victory today” she added.
COD Ladies coach and former captain of the Senior women’s National team, the Super Falcons, Ann Chiejine said her team faced a more experienced opponent.
“The graph is rising, I paraded young lads, young girls, school girls, two of them are in school, you cannot compare them with this people, but we’ll get there, give them two, three more years this people would have been old, we’ll take over” Ann said.
“It’s a gradual process, we have a structure, COD is a structured team, we have a structure, we have focus and we have our philosophy, so with time we’ll get to all this ones, we’re not keen about the goals, we want to see how our players can play together so give us one or two more years, but right now, we have come, we have seen and we’ll go back to our drawing boards” she added.
And in other centers:
Ibom Angels 0-0 Confluence Queens (AP 3-5)
Moje Queens 1-4 Edo Queens
Bayelsa Queens 5-1 Beautiful Tour
Osun Babes 3-1 Fortress Ladies
Rising Queens 0-3 FC Robo
Delta Queens 0-3 Nasarawa Amazons (W/0)
Alberto Queens 0-4 Sunshine Queens
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