Bayelsa Queens defeated last year’s Nigeria Women’s Premier League (NWPL) Super 4 champions, Nasarawa Amazons 2-0 to emerge 2018 league winners after a dominant display at the Agege Soccer Temple on Sunday evening.
The Restoration Girls came into the encounter on the back of a 1-0 victory over Sunshine Queens of Akure on Friday and followed it up with a brilliant display to clinch their 5th NWPL title after a 12 year wait.
Despite being the underdogs going into the final against the defending champions, Bayelsa Queens never showed any sign of fear, taking the game to Nasarawa Amazons from the blast of whistle but couldn’t find the breakthrough in the first period.
In the second half, Bayelsa Queens came out all guns blazing and were eventually rewarded with a goal three minutes after the restart as Igwe Uzoamaka found the back of the net with a wonderful strike from outside the area.
However despite taking a much deserved lead, Bayelsa Queens didn’t rest on their oars as they kept pushing for more goals looking to punish the defending champions whenever the opportunity presented itself. And the time finally came in the 55th when captain of Nasarawa Amazons, Ibrahim Mariam failed to clear a long ball which Joy Bokiri pounced on to finish beautifully past Uche Chukwu in goal.
The Amazons however never really posed any serious goal threat as the Restoration Girls defended as a unit refusing to let any ball go beyond them to cause problems for Alaba Jonathan in goal.
In the same vein, Sunshine Queens ran out third place winners at the NWPL Super 4 defeating 2018 AITEO Cup champions, Rivers Angels by an own goal from Amaechi Ojini.
Although the Owena Mermaids won by a lone goal, it could have been more going by their style of play and beautiful display of attacking football which left the AITEO Cup champions flat footed.
With both Bayelsa Oueens and Sunshine Queens dominating their opponents from start to finish, it won’t be out of place to say that it was the day for the underdogs and deservedly so.
