Rivers Angels winger Patience Kalu has expressed her delight at winning the 2017 Women’s AITEO Cup with the Port Harcourt side.
Kalu joined Angels from rivals Bayelsa Queens at the start of the just ended football season and was delighted to end the season with the first piece of silverware in her career.
Kalu came on as a second half substitute in Wednesday’s shootout victory over Ibom Angels in Jos and expressed her excitement to www.aclsports.com in a chat on Thursday.
“Up till now, I’m still in short of words because I know this AITEO Cup was not an easy one for us. I’m very much happy and don’t know how to express myself yet because I’m like finally, I got my heart desire,” Kalu told www.aclsports.com.
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The left-footed dead ball specialist was part of the Bayelsa Queens side which lost to Rivers Angels in last year’s final on penalties but when Wednesday’s final reached the shootout stage again, she was more confident of winning.
“For Rivers Angels, I so much have confidence in (goalkeeper) Oluehi because in the quarter-final and semi final, she has been doing well in penalties but I never wanted to take because of the pressure and all that, I was just praying and wishing the team well,” she said.
Kalu, a member of Nigeria’s Falconets to last year’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup also highlighted the importance of the team’s poor showing at the NWFL Super Four tournament in Benin City last week in their Cup final victory.
“We approached the AITEO Cup with full determination and confidence after what happened in Benin because we knew it is the final match of the season.
“Maybe at the Super Four, we felt we were the Champions and we will always win come what may so maybe God just wanted to use that to teach us a lesson or maybe it was fatigue after our semi-final with Bayelsa Queens,” she posited.
The Cup success, Rivers Angels’ seventh in the last eight years served as a good consolation after their failure to defend the league title but the smooth-talking Kalu assured her club will be back to fight for another league and cup double next term.
“Everyone knows that Rivers Angels will always be champions and compete for the double. I still have that target that we are going to come out as double champions next season,” concluded the 21-year old.
