By: Esther Ogunleye.

The National Association of Students of English and Literary Studies (NASELS) sport director, Afonja Samson, on Saturday claimed that his overall goal is to rejuvenate the NASELS football team.

Afonja Samson spoke to the NASELS Press after the training for both male and female football teams at the Students’ Union Building mini-field. The training commenced at exactly 7:00 am with more than twenty players in attendance. After opening the session with some warmup sessions, the players completed a series of ball-retention drills and physical and tactical exercises on the football pitch.

The training included both enthusiastic male and female NASELites who came out in their numbers and bombarded the Student Union Building field to attend a series of rigorous training sessions. The training ended at 10:05 am. Despite being the first training this semester, the players were encouraged to eagerly embrace the culture of rigorous exercises and practice to be better.

While speaking to the press, Afonja said, “The overall goal this season is to rejuvenate the team. The last session was almost nothing to write home about but this time around. We have a new football jersey that will be unveiled very soon, a new ball and we are working towards the newly proposed HOD’s cup and Dean’s tournament. Most important, is the unionism between all levels in the department. With time, I’m sure all our goals will be achieved.”

When asked about his assessment of the improvement of the player, he stated, “There were quite several events and everybody participated, even the females. This is vital to the development of the sports team and I’m immensely impressed. The first was to ensure that there was a high turnout of players, and I achieved that. We were also able to get the props for the training; the ball and jerseys. We started on time and even had new trainees present in our midst today. I believe I met my target today.”

“There will be more training in all areas of track and especially, field events. Training, coupled with the players will improve themselves, they can certainly do more on their strengths and weaknesses.”, he concluded.

In the same vein, a 400-level student, Franklin, spoke to the NASELS Press after the training. He expressed his delight to be at the training in almost two years. “It was great to be back out here again to train in almost two years. Though I was a little bit rusty today, I’m sure as the training continues, I can do a lot better.” “The raw passion for football keeps me going. The need to participate and play exceptionally well in matches keeps me motivated and helps me to improve. I expected more people to turn out for the training today but it’s a silver lining to know that for the first training in months now, we had this amount of people coming to participate. The training was rigorous and I appreciate the sports director for that.”

The sports director later declared that the next training session would come up next Saturday.