Abia Warriors head coach, Imama Amapakabo is looking forward to his side’s Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) clash against Rivers United in Aba on Saturday.
The two sides experienced contrasting results in their opening fixtures of this season’s NPFL.
United defeated Enugu Rangers 1-0 at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt with Fortune Omoniwari netting the winner on 29 minutes while Samad Kadiri’s second half penalty condemned the Warriors to a 1-0 defeat to eight time NPFL Champions, Enuimba.
Amapakabo now wants a positive response from his charges as they face the “Pride of Rivers” on Saturday and is looking forward to an “exciting” game.
“Playing against Rivers United will represent an exciting game,” Amapakabo said at a press conference.
“They (Rivers United) are also another team (like Enyimba) who are on the continent. We had a friendly game against them (recently) but no two games are the same but I know it will also be another exciting game.”
Amapakabo then reflected on the defeat against Enyimba on match day one, expressing disappointment that they were not allowed to train as frequently, at the match venue, as they would have liked.
“It’s a different ball game when you train on grass and when you play on astro.
“Astro is astro and grass is grass. This (the Enyimba Stadium, Aba) is our home and we have adopted here to be our home.
“We were only allowed on training session in the Stadium before we faced Enyimba in our first league game of the season here.
“This our home Stadium but we are bot allowed to train here as often as we will like.
“We hope that we will be allowed to be able to use our home turf to train as much as we possibly can.”
Abia Warriors made a number of big name signings in the off season with former Kano Pillars midfielder, Nzube Anaezemba and goalkeeper, Olorunleke Ojo headlining the list of new arrivals.
Amapakabo says this does not put him under any kind of pressure.
“Imama Amapakabo is never under pressure. The pressure I put on myself is the result that I want. When you talk about big players, you need to understand that Abia Warriors recruited like every other team.
“About eighty or ninety percent of the coaches in the league were with their teams previously but I only joined the team at the start of this season.
“The Abia Warriors team that faced Enyimba in our first game in the League had about eighty five percent new players.
“Gradually, the team will blend into what we want to see but I was impressed by our display against Enyimba.
“It is a long season. This is the first of 38 games. We have lost three points but we still have 111 points to play for.
“I have noticed certain things and it’s my responsibility to work on those things and that is why I was contracted as coach of Abia Warriors.
Speaking further about the defeat to Enyimba, Amapakabo was less than pleased with what he described a negative antics from the ball boys at the ground.
“It’s funny when you play a game, we were supposed to have about nine or ten match balls but at a certain point when a team scores a goal, a lot of the balls disappear! It baffles me,” he said. “The ball boys that were supposed to distribute the balls decided to stop and hold on to the balls instead.
“All I did was to go to the ball boy and get the ball. If I hadn’t done that, the game wouldn’t have been restarted.
“The referee then told me that it was not my responsibility to retrieve the balls.
“As the coach, it is my responsibility to help my team as much as I possibly can. The best way to help me team in that instance is to get the back into play as quickly as I possibly could and put the ball back into play.
“Abia Warriors want to do well this season.”
