Match day two of the Nigeria Professional Football League took place yesterday with six games played at different venues making owngoalnigeria.com to take a look at the five things we noticed.
1. MFM FC MEANS BUSINESS: Mountain of Fire Ministry football club just as the fire in their name suggest might be the surprise package of this year Nigeria Premier League owing to how strong they start off games and kill off their opponents.
Against Rivers United just like they did against Nassarawa United away in Lafia, the ministry boys raced into an early two goal lead that they protected even though the visitors reduced the deficit in the second half, that knack for scoring early might see them do a Leicester City in the Nigeria top flight league.
2. WIKKI TOURIST HOME FORM IS A CONCERN: Bauchi based Wikki Tourist last season were deadly away from home and they continued that same trend beating El-Kanemi Warriors in match day one of the Nigeria Premier League but at home against Heartland they were stuck.
Wikki drew 0-0 at home against Heartland yesterday, a result that should trouble the technical crew as they could easily have qualified for continental football last season if their home form was better going by points they picked away from home.
3. TORNADOES WILL STRUGGLE IN LOKOJA: Leaving the comfort of their Bako Kontagora stadium which was deem not good enough to host league games by the League Management Company of Nigeria (LMC).
Thjey moved to neighboring Kogi State where they are presently using the artificial turf at the Township stadium in Lokoja but still nothing close to the comfort they enjoy at the stadium their fans popularly call “Jah Blocks” meaning red bricks as evident in their 0-0 draw against Giwa.
4. EL-KANEMI WARRIORS ARE EARLY CANDIDATE FOR RELEGATION: The Borno State owned team for two seasons have been playing their games in Katsina state and the support they get from their original base currently ravaged by terrorist activities is scarce.
They started off with a loss at home to Wikki Tourist and the 2-1 defeat they suffered in Abia state against Abia Warriors means they are now the basement team in the league after back to back losses.
El-Kanemi Warriors lost some of their best legs after last season owing to issues surrounding non payments of salaries and even the coming of veteran coach Ladan Bosso might not save them from escaping the drop like they did last season.
5. PUBLICITY SO FAR, SO GOOD: After two rounds of games kudos must be given to the media and publicity team of the LMC and indigenous journalist who covered the league as the awareness the league enjoyed was largely due to their effort.
On match day one #NPFL was the number one Nigeria trend on social media application twitter, a situation which if sustained will boost the image and strengthen the marketability of the league in it’s drive to have more sponsors.
