Lobi Stars football club of Makurdi skipper Tony Agbaji has stated that the criticism the team received when they were named champions of the Nigeria Professional Football League and Nigeria’s sole representative at the 2018/2019 CAF Champion’s League was what gave them the strength to work harder in ensuring they qualify for the group stage of the competition.
Lobi Stars defeated UMS de Loum of Cameroon in the preliminary stage before eliminating Gor Mahia of Kenya in the first round of the competition to book a group stage slot and Agbaji said some of the hard words they received from football followers in the country made them buckle up to face tougher challenges.
Speaking with Sports247.ng Agbaji said he believes they were written off after falling 3-1 in the hands of Gor Mahia in the first leg and has stated that the criticism played a role in ensuring they come out tops from their Kenyan opposition.
He said. “When we lost 3 – 1 to Gor Mahia in Kenya lots of people didn’t have nice things to say about us, some even said we were a disgrace to Nigerian club football but instead of allowing those criticisms weigh us down we decided to work harder and the result is the group stage that we are in now.
Our job is not done yet. We will keep working because our aim is to take it one game at a time and eventually our bigger plan is to make the good people of Benue state and Nigeria proud by winning the trophy which I believe is possible.”
Lobi stars have been seeded in pot 4 ahead of the Champions’ League group stage draw which is billed to be staged on the 28th of December.
