Resilient Rivers Angels thrash COD Ladies 
WOMEN’S Federation Cup defending Champions, Rivers Angels of Port Harcourt progressed to the quarter finals of the competition defeating COD Ladies of Lagos, 4-1 in the round of 16 encounter.
Mercy Amanze opened scoring on the 13th minute and three minutes later, Ayila Loveth slotted in the second goal.
And on the 40th minute, Ijeoma Emenike headed in a cross from Mabel Effiom to extend the lead to 3-0 before half time.
However, Monday Gift gave the Ann Chiejine led team a goal on the 47th minute but highly spirited Angels kept on with the pressure on their opponent as Ijeoma netted in a brace on the 65th minute to seal the deserved victory for the Edwin Okon tutored side.
The last time both teams met at this stage, it ended 6-1 in favour of Rivers Angels and Coach Edwin Okon believes his opponents have improved
“I thank God for the victory, FA cup is not a thing that you joke over and I have seen improvement in the team because we played them last year and there’s improvement this year, last year it was six, and is four so I want to say there’s improvement” Okon stated.
“We are the defending champion; you can as well see the way the team plays, we’ll try as much as we can, some of our players are in the U-20 that are supposed to beef up the team but all the same we can’t stop the national assignment; we just make do with what we have to the finals, our target is just the cup because we’re the defending champions”
“We want to win it for the sixth time, we’ve won it five good times, I think if we win this, it will be the sixth time” He added.
Mercy Amanze who opened scoring for the team equally gave her thoughts after the game.
“Am so so happy for the victory and to for the hardworking, at least after my training or before the training, I go to do my extra training because of this competition especially challenge cup, I love playing challenge cup since when I started this game” Said Amanze.
“Am happy and I love the way my team play, we play in unity and God grant our effort to victory today” she added.
COD Ladies coach and former captain of the Senior women’s National team, the Super Falcons, Ann Chiejine said her team faced a more experienced opponents and needs more time.
“The graph is rising, I paraded young lads, young girls, school girls, two of them are in school, you cannot compare them with this people, but we’ll get there, give them two, three more years this people would have been old, we’ll take over” Ann said.
“It’s a gradual, we have a structure, COD is a structured team, we have a structure, we have focus and we have our philosophy, so with time we’ll get to all this ones, we’re not keen about the goals, we’re not keen about how they, we want to see how our players can play together so give more one, two years the girls will get there but right now, we have come, we have seen and we’ll go back to our drawing boards” she added.

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