It was supposed to culminate in a first Nigerian league title for Sunshine Stars on their 20th anniversary as a club. So thought most of their faithful, players and even officials including those at the football agency that oversees the affairs of the Akure club, but that now looks bleak.
The Akure club were the best in the first round of this season’s campaign in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL), also referred to as the Glo Premier League. They finished the first round top with 36 points, same with Enyimba, but with a superior goal difference.
Such was the dominance of Sunshine Stars in the first round of the season that they occupied top spot for 10 match days including sitting pretty at the summit for five consecutive match days. Sandwiched among that run was a 3-0 win at Heartland, which at that time was their only success on the road.
In fact that 3-0 success at Heartland did serve as a catalyst to wet the appetite of Sunshine Stars faithful as they looked forward to a first Nigerian title with their 20th anniversary this year.
On the last day of the first round, Sunshine Stars barely scraped past struggling FC Taraba, at the time bottom of the standings. Playing at home in front of just above 5,000 fans the Taraba club stunned them by taking the lead through Stephen Adah in the 12th minute.
Sunshine Stars had to toil for 32 minutes before Tunde Adeniji pulled them level and then scored the winner five minutes into the restart. Adeniji’s brace of goals was just enough to keep them ahead of Enyimba, who claimed a 2-1 win at southeast rivals, Enugu Rangers.
The Akure club failed to strengthen their playing personnel in mid-season with new signings despite the fact that their squad looked thin whenever the likes of goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa, Prince Aggreh, Paul Onobi, Dayo Ojo and Tunde Adeniji were away on international duties.
While Sunshine Stars were quiet in the mid-season transfer market, their fellow title contenders, Enyimba, were hogging every talent in sight to shore up their already star-packed squad. In came Musa Najare and Burkina Faso striker, Ahmed Kone as well as the promotion of youngster Alloy Browne from their development team for the second round.
If Kennedy Boboye’s men needed to be told that the second round is the business end of the title race, struggling FC Taraba made that statement clear to them at the Jolly Nyame Stadium in Jalingo. Adah, again, returned to score against Sunshine Stars, and this time, the winning goal. Their rivals in the title race, Enyimba, battled Rangers to a 1-1 draw and that signalled the start of Sunshine Stars’ struggles in the run-in of the NPFL.
And then the collapse at home came. Two games on the spin, Sunshine Stars failed to claim full points after a 100 per cent run in the previous 13 matches at home. First, Heartland, who they had beaten in the reverse game 3-0, got a point off them and then Nasarawa United crashed the party with a 3-2 win ending a six-year home record held by Sunshine Stars in the top-flight.
Sunshine Stars head coach, Boboye, believed that the Nasarawa United setback was just a blip and that “we will bounce back.” At present, the Owena Waves are eight points behind table-topping Enyimba and have been dislodged from the top-four for the first time since match day six, which was five months ago.
And their recent 0-3 capitulation at fellow title contenders, Warri Wolves, summed up their struggles in the business end of the season followed up by a 1-2 loss at Kano Pillars. But midfielder, Paul Onobi, remains confident that they can salvage the situation with five games to go.
“It is not over yet,” he told supersport.com. “We have had a few results which are not good for us, but there are five games to be played and we can still do better.”
The run-in for a top-three finish now presents them with a handful of tricky and big contests in their last five games against relegation-threatened sides, Akwa United, Bayelsa United and Lobi Stars. There are also two home games against southeast teams, Rangers and Enyimba, despite Onobi’s assurances. The latter is their last game of the season on November 15 and could prove important in determining the campaign’s outcome if Enyimba or the other top-four sides fail to build on their lead.
Until date, Sunshine Stars’ best finish in the top-flight remains a second-placed position in the 2010/11 season when they missed the title by two points less to Dolphins, who notched up 73 points to win the title that season.
