Shooting Stars’ head coach, Gbenga Ogunbote, has expressed mixed feelings after his team began the new season with a 1-1 draw on the road against Nasarawa United.
While Ogunbote acknowledged the value of securing a point away from home, he lamented the missed opportunity to claim all three.
NPFL Matchday One, saw Shooting Stars trailing 1-0 until injury time when Samuel Ayanrinde emerged as the hero, coming off the bench to score in the 90+3 minute, cancelling out Anas Yusuf’s first-half penalty and salvaging a draw for his side.
In his post-match comments, Ogunbote, also known as ‘The Oracle,’ described the result as a ‘two-point loss’ rather than a point gained.
“Being the first game, I want to say I’m happy for the one point because it is better than nothing but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a two points loss for me because it’s a game we needed to have wrapped point going home with a point, I think its enough to console us” Ogunbote said.
Despite the challenging circumstances, the former Remo Stars, Sunshine Stars, and Rangers International coach remained optimistic. He noted that, even when it seemed the home team might extend their lead, he never doubted his side’s ability to turn the game around.
“I didn’t see us losing the game; all we just needed to do was to get ourselves stabilized and take authority, and the moment we did just that, you could see that the chances kept coming.
The team, Nasarawa United just got promoted, you need to see their fight in the first half. All we needed to do was to soak the pressure, and having done that, we came all out in the second half,” Ogunbote explained.
This season marks Ogunbote’s third year with Shooting Stars, having joined the club in 2022.
Under his guidance, the team finished fourth last season and is now looking to improve on that performance with hopes of a more successful campaign ahead.
