{"id":66801,"date":"2025-05-28T15:32:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T15:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=66801"},"modified":"2025-05-28T15:32:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T15:32:55","slug":"npfl-obuh-reflects-on-abia-warriors-tough-journey-to-historic-top-three-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/28\/npfl-obuh-reflects-on-abia-warriors-tough-journey-to-historic-top-three-finish\/","title":{"rendered":"NPFL: Obuh Reflects on Abia Warriors\u2019 Tough Journey to Historic Top-Three Finish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Oluwamayowa Fakande<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>John Obuh, Executive Chairman of the Abia Warriors Management Committee, has reflected on the club\u2019s arduous journey to securing a historic top-three finish in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL)-a feat that has earned them a spot in the 2025\/2026 CAF Confederation Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Obuh, 65, a respected tactician and former coach of Nigeria\u2019s U17 and U20 national teams, described the NPFL as one of Africa\u2019s most unpredictable and competitive leagues.<\/p>\n<p>He credited the club\u2019s resilience, hard work, and focus for their remarkable campaign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve never had a stable position in the league. That\u2019s why it has been very, very difficult,\u201d Obuh said. \u201cYou play one game and find yourself in 11th place. You play another and move up to 9th.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the most important thing is that we kept faith and belief in ourselves, having a clear target. Despite the ups and downs in our performance, we weathered all the storms and still reached our destination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abia Warriors wrapped up the 2024\/2025 NPFL season in third place with 60 points from 38 matches-just four points behind second-placed Rivers United.<\/p>\n<p>The finish secures their debut appearance in the CAF Confederation Cup, while Rivers United and league champions Remo Stars will fly Nigeria\u2019s flag in the CAF Champions League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Oluwamayowa Fakande &nbsp; John Obuh, Executive Chairman of the Abia Warriors Management Committee, has reflected on the club\u2019s arduous journey to securing a historic top-three finish in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL)-a feat that has earned them a spot in the 2025\/2026 CAF Confederation Cup. Obuh, 65, a respected tactician and former coach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":66802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66803,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801\/revisions\/66803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}