Kicking off!

It is indeed sad moment for lovers of football in Nigeria as three of the four NPFL Clubs that represented the country in the continent this year have crashed out of the Confederation Cup.

After dropping down from the Champions League, expectations were high that last year’s NPFL winners and runners up, Plateau United and MFM would go very far in the second tier competition.

Unfortunately, they along with Akwa United failed to scale the last hurdles on the way to the group stage of the Confederation Cup.

Thus, our cover story this week takes a look at the reaction of Nigerian football fans to the dismal outing of the three NPFL clubs in the continent. We sampled the views of the football analysts who are unanimous in their view that the lack-lustre outing of the NPFL clubs has done more damage to the reputation of the domestic league.

As usual, we have served you an incisive interview we had with the interim Technical Adviser of Niger Tornadoes, coach Hamza Abdul’azeez Abara who spoke to us on what he has done to bring back the winning mentality of his players. He also explained why Tornadoes slumped under coach Erasmus Onuh after a brilliant bright start to the season.

And this afternoon at the prestigious Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval, the Nigeria national cricket team will battle perennial rivals, Ghana in a winner takes all contest at the ongoing ICC World T20 Africa Qualifier.

Nigeria’s winning streak at the tournament was aborted on Tuesday by Ghana who defeated them by 7 wickets so today’s final day clash is surely a grudge contest. Ghana hold psychological edge going into this contest.

We draw curtains on this week’s edition of SHOT! with our delectable Euro Round Up page which brings to you captivating stories in the top football leagues in Europe.

Although the football leagues in England, Germany and France are done and dusted as far as the winners are concerned, the same cannot be said of the Italian Serie A where the race is still on between Juventus and Napoli.

Today, Napoli and Juventus face-off and victory for Juve will put in jeopardy the hopes of Napoli winning the title.

This is our line up, of stories for your weekend relaxation. Keep a date with us.

Have a splendid weekend.