Bayelsa Queens of Yenagoa coach, Ogbonda Whyte has admitted that a heavy victory for his team against Naija Ratels of FCT might not be good enough to fetch his side the Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) trophy on the last day of this year’s Super-6 in Ikenne, Ogun State.
Sports247 gathered that this is due to the fact that the club from Bayelsa State enter this season’s climax on Saturday level at seven points apiece with the defending champions, Edo Queens of Benin City and hosts, Remo Ladies of Ikenne, while Nasarawa Amazons of Lafia lead the log with eight points.
Speaking ahead of the last three matches to end this year’s NWFL Super-6 on Saturday, Ogbonda took another look at the chain of issues that put his side in the tight spot they now find themselves, most prominent of which was that his Yenagoa-based squad could have got a draw against Edo Queens on Thursday had they not lost concentration in the dying minutes.
Coach Whyte recounted, “My players lost concentration for a few seconds, and we paid the price. One of my players was just standing there, and she put an opponent onside. The centre backs were thinking it was offside, and they did not know that their colleague put the opponent on initially. Just a few seconds loss of concentration, and that was costly.”
He also pointed out that his players lost several scoring opportunities in the encounter, while the defending champions were able to make use of only one chance that they created during the game, which they won 1-0 and pulled level on seven points with their fellow South-South rivals.
Whyte added, “The match was just like a final. So, any opportunity created had to be used. It is bad in a match situation when you create opportunities but do not use them. The opponent will then get one opportunity and use it against you. That’s exactly what happened to us. We created chances but could not use them. So, at the end of the day, we lost the match.”
He then comforted himself that his side are still among four contenders for the title, but acknowledged that they will have to depend on results from the other two matches in order to lift the trophy on Saturday.
“I thank God that we are still in contention. My happiness, though, will come on May 17th if we lift the trophy. That’s when the reward of 15 matches unbeaten in the regular season will come into play and make me really happy.
“But, the truth is that all our calculations and everything we do now will depend on what others play. If others play to get a point ahead of us, it would mean that we scoring 10 or 20 goals against Ratels will have no effect. All the same, we will go for three points in that match,” Whyte concluded.
