Nigeria boasts some great players in the football industry with amazing athletes often being scouted for foreign premier leagues. Names like Nwankwo Kanu, Jay Jay Okocha, Yakubu Ayegbeni, and John Obi Mikel dominated the English Premier League on many occasions.
The Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) is the country’s official professional league and it is ripe with talents from young prodigies to veterans.
Unfortunately, the current year did not look good for the Super Eagles of this generation. The Nigerian national team failed to qualify for the tournament, thus extending the amount of time since the country’s gold medal victory in 1996.
The Super Eagles can try again to win the gold medal next time with the intensity of this generation’s competition in football. Fans of the sport can stay updated with Sportsbet news in Nigeria.
The Nigerian government and football association are working hard to improve the nation’s quality of training. Nigerian athletes won two medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Blessing Oborududu won the silver medal for women’s wrestling and Ese Brume achieved the bronze medal for women’s long jump. They may hail from different sports but it’s a great representation of Nigeria’s passion for athleticism.
Football has arguably the most competitive ecosystem in the world since it is the most popular sport based on the number of fans. Nigerian footballers are skilled but one must admit that the likes of Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Japan are intense competitors for the Super Eagles. The women’s team, Super Falcons, also failed to qualify against Canada and Sweden.
Nigeria Professional Football League
Akwa United is the champion of the NPFL 2020/21 season, their first premier league victory in history after a convincing 5-2 lead. It gave them a 71-point boost in the leaderboard that the defending champions, Enyimba, couldn’t overtake. The second place goes to the aforementioned defending champions who settled with several draws in the last five matches.
Akwa United’s decisive victory was from their 5 goals against the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Football Club (MFM F.C.) who placed 10th in the tournament. Their final opponent was Lobi Stars who beat the eventual champions 2-1 but they only placed 8th in the series.
In other news, four NPFL teams are relegated to the Nigeria National League (NNL), the country’s second-tier league of professional football. Those teams are the Jigawa Golden Stars, Warri Wolves, FC Ifeanyi Ubah, and Adamawa United. They are the 17th to 20th placers in that order of the latest NPFL season.
The NNL will start its 2021/22 season in November with 50 teams while the NPFL only has 16 clubs participating. Such changes could reshape the dynamics of both leagues but there weren’t any announcements of NNL teams moving up to the NPFL so this is going to be the new standard.
Nigeria Women’s Football League
The Super Falcons are brimming with competitive spirit as they fly with captain Asisat Oshoala when they played against Barcelona Femeni at the UEFA Women’s Champions League. While they did fail to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the NWFL is still brimming with passionate and talented players.
The whole league is currently dedicated to supporting the Rivers Angels FC at the CAF Women’s Champions League title in Egypt. It is the only representative for Nigeria in this season’s Confederation of African Football so all attention from all three tiers of the NWFL is cheering.
The Port Harcourt-based team outclassed the AS Police, one of the most formidable women’s teams in the country’s women’s division. Stay tuned for more Sportsbet news in Nigeria because the new season looks promising for the Giant of Africa.
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