Julius Ikechukwu's last minute header prevented an embarrassing moment for Gateway United Football Club against visiting FC One Rocket of Akwa Ibom in a second tier Nigeria National League NNL
The homeside managed a lone-goal win in the week 20 encounter played on Saturday at MKO Abiola International Stadium, Kuto in Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital.
The victory did not come on a platter of Gold as the Ogun State sponsored side had to wait till the dying moments of the game to break the deadlock in a game dominated by the home side.
The momentum was with the Hakeem Busari tutored side when the game began as Michael Okolo, Sunkanmi Odushina and Julius Ikechukwu showed intent right from the blast of the whistle.
They created chances but the opposition goalkeeper, Nwoke Christian was in a superb form.
FC One Rocket had their chances as well, but their passes in the final third let them down.
With the scoreline remaining goalless at half time, Gateway United began the second half the way they ended the first, it was an all attack approach and it didn't pay off until the 93rd minute when Julius Ikechukwu headed in an inswinger which sealed all maximum three points.
With the result, the Ogun State sponsored team is hopeful of a decent conclusion to the 2021 Nigeria National League season.
Up next for the Hakeem Busari tutored side is an away clash against Apex Krane of Agbor on Wednesday 4th of August, 2021.
Speaking with GUFC media team after the clash, the team head coach Hakeem Busari hailed his boys for doing a yeoman's job.
His words,"We played against a compact side. They haven't played for quite some time now and we just came back from Aiteo. So we had same character going into the match and that clearly was brought to the fore judging from how tensed the game was. Recall, this was the side we lost to in Uyo in the first stanza"
"We were unable to covert our chances first half and second half the game looked more tedious cos they were more defensive, and this dragged us to the tail end before we could get a goal. Our players showed resilience, tenacity and grit. They fought till the last minute. We now look forward to our next match on Wednesday" he concluded.
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