Oyo, Lagos Picks South West Zone Ticket, As President’s Cup Zonal Qualifiers Ends In Akure

The Oyo State Team defeated Ogun and Ondo State to lead group B at the ongoing Zonal qualifiers for the 1st edition of the President’s Cup at Akure Sports Stadium, Akure.

The Oyo team who are the defending champions of the DAWN Games in their first match yesterday defeated the host State, Ondo by three goals to one before stopping Ogun State who they defeated by two unreplied goals to top their group with six maximum points.

Lagos State who paraded one of the youngest teams in Akure defeated their Osun State counterparts in their first match with two goals from Chike Egeonu to stop the boastful Osun boys who had earlier on Monday defeated Ekiti State 2-1.

Chike Egeonu was again the hero of the Lagos team in their second match when he rose from the bench in the second half of the match against Ekiti state to score three goals with assist from Adewale Lasisi and Ahmed Solaja.

Speaking after the match head coach of Team Lagos, Olatunde Lawson expressed satisfaction with the performance of his boys.

But he was quick to point out the quality of their opponents, saying the teams are not that bad, but maybe they lack quality preparation.

He revealed that they are going back to the drawing board to prepare for the National finals holding later this month.

Team Lagos Clears 30 of 32 Gold medals at Swimming event of DAWN Games

Team Lagos completed almost completed a clean sweep of medals of the swimming event at the Dawn games, Lagos 2014.

The swimming pool of the Teslim Balogun Stadium Surulere, was the venue of this Epoch making event, and a sizeable crowd was on hand to witness history being made.

The Lagos team won 30 Gold medals from a possible 32 with 27 Silver and 3 Bronze.

Morayo Okungbowa

Star of the swimming event and arguably star of the tournament is Okungbowa Morayo of Lagos, who won 10 Gold 1 Silver and 2 Bronze medals to a make a total of 13 medals, the highest haul of medals by any individual athlete at the DAWN Games so far

This achievement will definitely be impossible for any other athlete at this games to surpass or even match.

Oyo came 2nd on the Swimming medals table with 2 Gold medals 3 Silver and 22 bronze medals, while Ogun state came 3rd with no Gold, 2 Silver and 7 bronze medals.

The kind of display put by Morayo Okungbowa and other young athletes at the DAWN Games only confirms the fact that this country is blessed with a lot of talent and its grassroots competitions like this that we need to harness the various hidden talents across the Nation

Sola Rogers.

NFF U-13 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP ENTERS SEMI FINAL STAGE

NFF U-13 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP ENTERS SEMI FINAL STAGE

The national finals of the 2013 NFF U-13 Football Championship enter the semi final stage on Monday in Abuja.
Team Lagos which has a 100% record so far will face team Katsina in the first semi final match by 2pm, while Team Niger also with a 100% record will engage team FCT by 4pm on the same day.

Out of the 13 States which qualified for the championship from the zonal preliminaries, only nine reported for the finals at the FIFA Goal Project Center of the Abuja National stadium. Team Enugu, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Edo failed to show up for the games, while team Gombe had their players disqualified for being over age. The remaining eight teams, Niger, Katsina, Lagos, Plateau, Bauchi and Federal Capital Territory, FCT where splitted into two groups A and B with the top two teams from the groups qualifying for the semi-final stage.

Following the successful completion of preliminary round matches on Sunday, ex-international Patrick Pascal (MON), who is also a member of the NFF’s Youth Development Committee said the Aminu Maigari led NFF board is determined to leave a lasting legacy for Nigeria football through the U-13 youth development programme.
“We are here to cement a great future for Nigeria football, the NFF president has mandated that we keep producing talents that can continue to win world cups for this country just like the Iheanacho(s) did in UAE.” The Atlanta ’96 Olympic gold medallist added.
The Championship also provides the National U-13 team coach, Danladi Nasidi, the opportunity to select the best 25 players for National team camping exercise.
The U-13 National Championship is one of the cardinal developmental programmes of the Aminu Maigari administration and has yielded abundant dividends with a number of players in the U-17
squad that won a record fourth FIFA U-17 World Cup for Nigeria last
year coming through the ranks.

Results of matches played so far:

Ogun 1-3 Kaduna
Niger 3-0 Katsina
Lagos 3-2 FCT
Plateau 7-0 Bauchi
Kaduna 2-3 Lagos

Katsina 2-1 Plateau
FCT 3-2 Ogun
Bauchi 0-5 Niger
Ogun 1-2 Lagos
Niger 5-1 Plateau
Kaduna 1– 2 FCT
Katsina 2 -0 Bauchi