Sunshine Queens Football Club of Akure on Wednesday defeated visiting Nasarawa Amazons 3-0 in a Match Day 13 fixture of the 2020/2021 Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) Premiership.
The win helped Sunshine Queens to advance to the Super Six stage of the league season.
The Super Six, which holds from April 18 to April 25, was agreed upon by the NWFL management and the participating clubs through a virtual meeting on Monday.
It was introduced to end the season through a playoffs, after the regular season would have ended abruptly with Wednesday’s week 13 matches.
This will allow the league winners to participate in the West Africa Football Union (WAFU) Qualifiers for the CAF Womens Champions League in May.
Meanwhile, in the match played at the Ondo State Sports Complex in Akure, Yakubu Aminat headed home Abideen Suliat’s corner-kick in the sixth minute to put the hosts ahead.
After several efforts by Sunshine Queens to double their lead, they were rewarded with a penalty kick award after a foul on Abigail Sunday.
Ogbonna Akudo stepped forward to score the penalty kick in the 61st minute to extend the hosts’ lead.
Six minutes later, Sunday benefitted from an error by a Nasarawa Amazons defender, Ibrahim Mariam, to score and put the game beyond the Lafia-based visitors.
Sunshine Queens’ Head Coach, Wemimo Mathew, later said she was happy with the performance of her team in spite of playing fewer home matches than the teams above them.
“I am happy with the performance of my players, especially by picking the maximum three points to place the team in a qualification position, with the hope that Confluence Queens would lose to Dream Stars in Lagos,” Matthew said.
She noted that her players created more chances in the game than in any other game, saying this showed a high level of determination to qualify for the Super Six.
The Technical Adviser of Nassarawa Amazons, Chris Danjuma, said his team came with another plan, only for two blunders to cost them the game.
Danjuma noted that football was a game of chance, which the home team took, and his team paid dearly for the mistakes.
SEGUN GIWA
MEDIA OFFICER,SUNSHINE QUEENS
Twitter: @SunshineQueens1
Facebook: @SunshinequeensFCAkure
