Heartland football club of Owerri for the second year running has qualified for the final of the Federation Cup.
The team which has suffered all kinds of distractions, ranging from unstable contract agreement for their technical adviser (Lordwiegk De Kruife) to unpaid entitlements as well as low morals and strike actions from the regularly hungry cum angry players, yet they managed to surmount all the challenges to reach the cup final for the second year running. With all these, let nobody be branded sports / football loving this and that, If eventually they win the cup on Sunday.
The federation cup defending champions had their striker Kabiri Umar sent off along side Tope Akande of Prime FC in the Course of the game that ended goaless after 90 minutes of hostilities.
Chijioke Ejiogu who entered at the 89th minute stopped the first penalty kick from Prime and stood still to watch two other kicks thrown away while captain Chinedu Efugh, Ikechukwu Ibenegbu and Kingsley Udoh converted theirs to give the Naze Millionaires a 3 – 0 victory.
Heartland will now meet Lobi Stars of Markurdi who defeated Nigerian Premier League leaders, Kano Pillars on Penalties 5 – 4 in the final game this Sunday at the Teslim Balogun stadium,Lagos.
If Heartland goes ahead to win the final game against Lobi, they will delaying their hands on the new giant trophy that was donated by theLagosstate Governor, Dr Raji Fashola who incidentally is Bank rolling the game.
Last year, Heartland defeated their Oriental brother Enyimba FC ofAbain the 2011 federation cup final game at the same venue.
