By Kunle Mudasiru
Rangers International Football Club of Enugu, on Wednesday, defeated Ikorodu City Football Club of Lagos, 1-0 to maintain their unbeaten run in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL)
The rescheduled 2024/2025 NPFL match day two fixture was played at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, Onikan, Lagos.
The visitors took the lead through a well placed flick from captain Chinemerem Ugwueze after a goal mouth scramble in the 25th minute.
Ikorodu City had the opportunity to get an equaliser in the 42nd minute of play as Chibuike Ohaegbulam’s header was cleared off the goal line by Rangers defenders.
The introduction of Moses Shodeinde and Solomon Emmanuel who both replaced Harrison Uzondu and Ezekiel Samuel in the 76th minute, created more chances for the host, but the visitors stood their ground.
The Oga Boys, as they are popularly called, wasted so many chances that could have seen them win the game as they dominated with attacking threats
In an interview after the match, Fidelis Ilechukwu, the Technical Adviser of Rangers, said Lagos was like his home.
Ilechukwu commended the performance of his team as he said it was a fantastic display.
“We are going to build on this win in our subsequent matches because it is a morale booster for the team,” he said.
On his part, Coach of Ikorodu City FC, Bright Ozebagbe, said his team lost so many scoring chances that could have made the difference.
“The loss means a lot to the team, but league is a marathon. Our first home result didn’t speak well of our performance.
“We’ll go back to the drawing board and try to walk on areas that we need to improve.
“We have moments of final touches which we should have converted, I think it’s a lot of moments where we lost the final decision.
“We are an attacking team, so we created a lot of chances; this is worrisome for us, especially at home, we need to take our chances, maybe by the next game, we will get better,” he said.
“There are also moments where we needed to be calm which we did not execute well, the boys need to be more focused and work on themselves for the final touch.
“Rangers are the league champions, so we didn’t make it easy for them, they only have one clear cut chance and made use of it”.
Ilechukwu further commended the performance of his team as he said it was a fantastic display.
“We are going to build on this win in our subsequent matches because it is a morale booster for the team,” he said.
