The captain of Next Talented Ballers Academy (NTBA), Perede Smooth says he and his colleagues are happy with the opportunity of a ‘huge platform’ that 1X Bet Cup 2024 provided for them in their first competition since the inception of the team two months ago.
With the club currently regarded as a crawling baby, Perede admitted they are still learning the rudiments of football and thanked the organisers of 1X Bet Cup for giving them something big to start with.
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Although they lost out earlier in the contest, Perede stressed that he and his teammates picked many positive and useful lessons from their maiden outing in such an intense atmosphere.
Perede added: “It was kind of intense and, at the same time, not so intense. We started the game, not the way we wanted because, for most of us, it’s our first time playing at this level.
“The club is new, we have young players and this is our first competition. We roughly started the game. In the second half, we increased our pace, and everything became intense.
“The game was very exciting. We had a lot of fun, we enjoyed the atmosphere and it was really good for all the players. For me, it was personally a good experience.”
He then spoke about the plans ahead of them and how they aim to get the club into the mainstream of football activities across Lagos State and beyond.
“We have a lot of plans that we are currently working on, and since we just started, we have a lot of work to do. We need to build the team and coordinate the players.
“We need some higher officials to come in and help us make things work better. We are working from where we started, and we’ll see how things go as time passes.
“This competition is a very good, big platform for us. We are excited to be part of such a huge tournament. We were hoping to go far, but we could not do it. That is the way football goes.
“We are disappointed but not sad. It’s a great platform. We enjoyed it, and we are happy to be here,” Perede concluded.
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