Guardian

Thrashes selected sides in friendlies

AFTER training at the Dubai Football Centre, the season five champion of the MTN Lagos Street Soccer Championship were thrilled with the state-of-art facilities at the centre.

The team - Koilo Street is at present in Dubai on a one-week playing tour of and was tutored by top coaches at the Dubai Football Centre.

Captain of the team, Jinadu Adio was full of praise for MTN Nigeria and the Lagos State Government for giving them the opportunity to visit the centre, which he described as the best head ever visited in his life.

“From the beginning of season five, it was obvious that the Local Organising Committee, as well as, MTN meant well for the players with series of innovation introduced in this season. The players and teams were well educated on the new rules of the game while the competition was also free of controversies, which marred previous editions.

“We were given the cash prize on time and the trip to Dubai is one I will forever remember, because we were taken to the right place where we were well tutored under the watchful eyes of qualified coaches.

“Having travelled to Dubai and South Africa in 2009 and 2010, whenever we had the chance to do much but with what we are at present witnessing in Dubai, I think this is the best I ever witnessed and I hope it will be better than this next season,” Adio said.

Also, Razaq Aremu was in cloud nine after training centre, saying: “It is a great privilege to visit and train at the centre. I am happy that we eventually achieved our dream of training at a world-class facility.

He continued: “Aside from the facilities, I think we have acquired some new skills in five-a-side football and this will surely help us to improve our skills in the game. The coaches are really knowledgeable about the game and have been very helpful.”

Also, the Koilo side walloped the selected sides in the two friendly matches played at the Dubai Football Centre.

After taking the players through the rudiments of the game, Managing Director of Dubai Football Centre, Anouar Idrissi was impressed with the conduct of the players, while commending them for their discipline.

“I want to say that the major quality and the most important thing in football is discipline and the players have displayed this. They took the training session serious and they followed all the instructions, which every good team need to have to excel in football. I really enjoyed working with them and we hope to organise some friendly matches for them with some of our teams during their stay in Dubai,” Idrissi said.

The former Strasbourg of France star, however, expressed willingness to work with the LOC during the season six of the MTN Lagos Street Soccer Tournament.