The Student Union’s SEALS cup interdepartmental football tournament came with a lot of entertainment, dramas and surprises and has just been wrapped up, with the Department of Philosophy being crowned as the champions. Some of the highlights were the Department of Geography, the winner of the last edition, crashing out from the group stage after winning only one match. The largely talked about “Group of Death”, Group D featured the Departments of Chemistry, Law, I.P.E and Economics. It was an intense group stage battle, as the qualifiers; Chemistry and I.P.E departments were determined on the last matchday. Both departments made it to the quarter-finals before ending their run.
Seals Cup debutants, the Department of Medicine and Surgery, had the most impressive run in the tournament. They emerged top of their group, winning 3 of their 3 matches and scoring 9 goals without conceding any goals. In the knockout stages, they knocked out the Microbiology department on penalties in the round of 16, and defeated the favoured I.P.E department on a lone goal in the quarter-finals, before narrowly ending their run in the semis, with a narrow defeat against the Department of Political Science after an early penalty goal, which was the lone goal of the game, sealed their fate. They still went on to finish third, with a 1-nil win over Computer Science in the third-place match.
Adeoluwa Ariyo was extraordinary, emerging as the best goalie of the tournament. Also important to mention is the wonder rookie, Jide registered 5 goals in the tournament, making him the second-highest goal scorer. The final match was quite an engaging one. The Political Science side scored from an open play during the first half, with the Philosophy department responding with a late freekick equalizer with some minutes to the end of the game. The game proceeded to a penalty shootout, with the Department of Philosophy emerging as the champions. However, there were lots of complaints about the officiating throughout the tournament. On different occasions where there were clear handball fouls weren’t blown for. Also, premature termination of the official timing on different occurrences was also noticed.
Some individual awards;
Highest Goal Scorer: Taiwo Ayodele (Chemistry) with 6 goals in 5 matches.
Best Goalkeeper: Adeolu Ariyo (Medicine and Surgery) with 6 clean sheets in 7 matches, with one goal conceded from a penalty.
No doubt, this edition of the SEALS CUP tournament was an interesting one overall, and it didn’t fail to produce peak entertainment. Special thank you to UIMSAites who turned up massively for the Team all through the tournament. See you at the next edition!
Moshood Sidiq