Today marks the opening of the second edition of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) Sport Festivals,with the event starting with the FASA vs ESAN football match at FUOYE sport complex, Oye campus.

The FUOYE Sport Festivals which are to be held at both Oye and Ikole campuses, kicked-off in grand style with a thrilling football match between Faculty of Education and Faculty of Art. This event is aimed at fostering unity and popular sport engagements among students across all campuses.

Raheem Boluwatife, SUG Sport Director, in his interview with a UCJ reporter explained that t e events is not just about the activities but helps increase the inter campus engagement and foster unity across all faculties.

"This sport festival is really a special and important one because the first edition didn't really showcase enthusiasm and unity, so I and my organizing team decided to do a second edition for more engagement and unity among faculties",

The opening of the event started with a football match between two logger-heads rivals, Faculty of Art Students Association (FASA) and Education Students Association of Nigeria (ESAN), that ended in a 1-0 win to ESAN. The match was truly intense and overwhelming with both teams giving their best shots and attacks to get the first 3 points of the game.

During the first half, both teams played out their best defences and counter attacks till FASA lost concentration on the game giving ESAN the opportunity to lead FASA with a goal. And during the second half, both teams created a lot of chances but were wasted and couldn't be converted into a goal until full time.

Isaac Ebenezer, FASA coach, expressed that the game wasn't short of expectations and only lost due to slight loss in concentration with the previous encounter having them topped ESAN Team. "I went into the game with a 4-3-3 formation. Playing from the back and bringing fun and excitement to the game and fans. Both teams couldn’t actually build up and it affected my formation and tactics because the opponent forced my team to play to their pattern and it favoured them with 3 points. I was also expecting a tough game. Fasa 400l played ESAN 400l yesterday and they lost 2-1, so I didn’t expect an easy game from both teams We lost concentration for a second and we lost the game due to the error. We go back to the drawing board and correct our mistakes".

Also, ESAN coach, Bentular Temioluwa gave his comment in an interview with UCJ reporter on how he felt about the match and his opponent :

" Headed to the game with the traditional 4-3-3 formation, and with clear instructions of playing the opponents out during the first half, they were sharp on counters and I told the teams to suppress their attacks in the first half as most of their wins have come from goals in the first half. So we did what we had to do, and they didn’t score in the first half.”

He added that triggered his second half “A clear instruction was given to the boys, Go and win. We have the players with the right mentality and also players that wants to win, from the starting Eleven to those from the bench even to our fans everyone just wants to win and we did”

Although he claims it wasn’t an easy win “It was a very tense game that made the fans want more, an outstanding officiating, and to cap it all a crazy atmosphere from fans of both teams.”

The opening event witnessed massive turnout from fans and spectators for the match and some of the spectators expressed their satisfaction with the opening event.

One of the spectators in an interview with a UCJ reporter, expressed that

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Another commented saying that it was really a good match but he was expecting more goals from the scoreline, like 3-1 win to ESAN.

With the thrilling opening events, the scale is high for the expected excitement the FUOYESU SPORT FESTIVAL has to offer.