Sunshine Stars captain, Vincent Temitope has lauded his team’s outing in the just concluded 2022/2023 NPFL Championship Play-Offs at the Mobolaji Johnson, Onikan Arena despite missing out on the title and also continental football as he vows to lead the team on a title triumph next season.
The Akure-based club finished fourth with five points on the Nigeria Professional Premier League Championship play-off standings having played five games, drawn two, and lost two as they managed to pick the only win of the tournament on the final game day with a resounding 3-1 victory against Lobi Stars.
Vincent who had failed to make his mark in all previous four matches didn’t make Edith Agoye’s starting XI but he did make his substitution in the latter part of the game count as he registered his name on the score sheet moments before the blast of the final whistle as he added a third to kill all hopes of Lobi Stars comeback in the encounter.
“It’s really a great delight getting my first goal of the tournament and I want to commend our players, they really fought hard, we haven’t won any game throughout the competition and that’s why we have to push ourselves to play hard so that we can get a win before it ends,” the winger stated in his interview with pressmen after the match.
“We didn’t save the best performance for the last day, this is just my first goal and I need to work hard to get it, it shows the demand for quality performance that’s needed’ – in response to why the team left it late to produce their best performance in the tournament.
“We will play very well next season because if you watch the team, we are very young and for this season, we just came together. Most of the players were newly recruited because most of our players left and since their exit, we need to bring in new guys.”
“We only have a few old guys in the team so by next season, we would have understood ourselves better moving forward, “he assured.
Meanwhile, 2022 champions, Rivers United will be playing in the Continental following their third-place finish in the Championship play-offs.
Enyimba, having won their ninth NPFL crown will now feature in the CAF Champions League alongside Remo Stars who will be making their debut in the continent Champions League having played Confederations Cup last season as they narrowly missed out on the title by a goal difference.
