NPFL: Tough battles as title race enters home stretch

With six match weeks left to play, it is fascinating to note that no team is yet certain to either win the league, claim a continental spot or get relegated after thirty-two weeks of grueling football hostilities.

This NPFL season has served followers of the beautiful game in Nigeria a memorable time filled with intrigues, drama, shocks, controversies and pleasurable outcomes in equal doses. Hence, the final lap cannot be less exciting.

Like Brymo sang in his 2012 song; we all need something. From Lagos to Enugu and from Kano to Port Harcourt, everyone has something they are praying for and wishing to happen. The fickleness in garnered results over the course of the season has led to uncertainties in the achievement of clubs’ aspirations across all rungs of the league’s ladder.

The season so far…

This particular NPFL episode is one for the ages! While some perennial title challengers, like Rangers and Rivers United have kept up the chase, some have found themselves gasping and fighting against generational ignominy – a demotion to the second tier.

The season started with Nasarawa United and Abia Warriors unexpectedly setting the pace in what was really the tone-setter for an extra-ordinary league season. Both teams continue to lay claim to a likely  continental position at the end of the season.

The season also unravelled badly for some of the country’s elites as traditional powerhouses Kano Pillars and Enyimba FC found themselves fighting for dear lives at the very lower rung of the table. That should account for one of the most inexplicable stories of the campaign so far. While Pillars experienced relegation as recently as four years ago, Enyimba have been a mainstay in the league for the past 25 years but have their legs shaking at the moment.

The other shocking story is that of league’s defending champions Remo Stars who go from being Champions League group stage hopefuls to being a strong NNL candidate, even though their chances of beating the drop has brightened in the past couple of weeks.

Where will the trophy land?

Although two former champions Rivers United and Rangers International have been neck and neck for the past four match weeks in the race to winning the title, seeing that only five points separate first from fifth with six matches left portrays that teams in 3rd, 4th and 5th are lurking in case of any catastrophic slip from the Top two.

Rivers United returned to the top of the table last weekend after ending a dreadful run of four successive losses which had allowed Rangers leapfrog them on the log, but the Flying Antelopes themselves succumbed to a 1-3 loss at Shooting Stars, ending their own unbeaten run of eight games.

When Rangers won the league two years ago, Fidelis Ilechukwu’s side quietly emerged from behind, embarking on a ten-game unbeaten sequence in the second stanza to sneak in just before the tape. They had practically embarked on another of such run this time but with Finidi George’s Rivers United as their contender, the final six matches will present onlookers with the drama worthy of Hollywood’s prime time viewing.

Rivers United have tricky away trips to Warri Wolves, Kano Pillars and Wikki Tourists as well as home games against Plateau United, Abia Warriors and Katsina United. They will hope that playing the last game of the season at home would count as advantage against Rangers who end the season away to continetal-ticket chasing Ikorodu City. Before then, Rangers have home games against Barau, Enyimba and Bendel Insurance as well as trips to Niger Tornadoes and Bayelsa United.

Hello CAF competitions…

Considering that not much grounds are expected to be lost by the top two sides, it is safe to assume that the worst any of them will drop is to 3rd position. Thus, only one continental place is realistically available to be hustled for by Ikorodu City, Nasarawa United and Shooting Stars – with Abia Warriors in with an outside chance.

Ikorodu City have a considerate gap in this last bend as they take a two-point cushion to face Plateau United on a neutral ground on Match Week 33. At least a point from that game can strengthen their hold on that spot for the remaining games considering how the home and away pendulum affects results to come.

Nasarawa United and Shooting Stars are lurking in the shadows of Ikorodu, waiting to pounce on any slip ups but the Oluyole Warriors holds an advantage over United in that their final three home games include a Match Day 36 clash with Nasarawa United.

No team have a better home win record in the league than Shooting Stars this season, and that should mean something when Nasarawa come to Ibadan. Before then though, Shooting have trips to Ikenne and Maiduguri before ending the season away in Minna against relegation haunted Niger Tornadoes.

The relegation battlers…

The number of league’s top dogs involved in this season relegation tussle has turned up the entertainment value for neutrals and it will only get more intriguing as the season winds down. As of now, nobody is safe from 20 to 11th with five points separating Niger Tornadoes from Remo Stars in 17th.

Poignantly, Kano Pillars, Enyimba and Remo Stars joined in a fierce demotion battle by reigning Cup champions Kwara United is not what the most knowledgeable of predictors could have called before the season started but this has unfolded in front of our very eyes.

If the league were to end today, Remo Stars would be demoted to the second division, thereby breaking a 16-year unwanted record of being the NPFL champions that got relegated the following season.

Remo are currently two points adrift of safety and they have some difficult games on their plate; starting from this weekend’s home clash with fiery South Western rivals Shooting Stars and against other unsafe teams like Barau, Niger Tornadoes and Enyimba.

It seems, to all intents and purposes that Kun Khalifat and Wikki Tourists will return to where they came from (the NNL) as it is the norm with newly promoted sides across the globe, but the last two teams to join them will only be decided after these six weeks of unpredictable conclusion.