The FCT U-13 team on Tuesday defeated their Lagos state counterparts 5 -1 to emerge the champions of the 2013 NFF National U-13 Championship in Abuja.
The match which was played at the FIFA Goal Project Centre of the Abuja National stadium, witnessed quality exchanges from both teams, but it was the FCT team that had the upper hand scoring five and conceding just once.
Mustapha Abubakar, Ebuka Okeke,Abdulsalam Mohamed and Emmeka Samuel were all on the score sheet for FCT while Hadi Haruna scored Lagos state’s only goal in the match.
Both teams met earlier in the preliminary round and Lagos won that encounter 3-2. Niger state picked up bronze after their third place opponents, team Katsina were disqualified for gross indiscipline during their semi final game which they lost 2-0 to team Lagos.Certificates and medals were also given to the three best placed teams while Lagos state’s Musa Ali emerged the most valuable player of the tournament and Lawal Olayinka of FCT emerged the best goalkeeper.
Meanwhile, the National U-13/U-15 team secretary Wale Adeyinka says 41 players have been picked from the just concluded 2013 NFF National U-13 Championship in Abuja. Adeyinka also added that the selected players would be called to the National U-13 & U-15 team camp by March
” We are pleased with what we’ve seen in the last five days, especially with the fact that majority of the states came with players of the right age brackets, which means grassroots football development is striving in these areas.
Also, we’ve been able to pick 41 players that will have the opportunity to come fight for shirts when the national camp opens in March. “ He stated
Eight U-13 teams from, Katsina, Kaduna, FCT, Ogun, Niger, Bauchi, Plateau and Lagos participated in the games.
