By David Owei
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\n\u200eBayelsa United technical adviser, Abdul Maikaba, says the club has a clear mandate: return to the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) at the end of the 2026\/27 Nigeria National League (NNL) season.
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\n\u200eSpeaking after a preseason victory over De Go-Pro FC of Sapele, Maikaba said the Yenagoa-based Prosperity Boys are fully focused on the task ahead as the NNL gets set to kick off on Saturday, October 31.
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\n\u200eThe season opener will feature Heartland of Owerri taking on Crown FC of Ogbomosho, the league announced during its AGM in Owerri.
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\n\u200e\u201cI am satisfied with the display and the way they played,\u201d Maikaba told journalists. \u201cBut the truth is, we are assessing the players because we are recruiting. We are looking to see who will add value to the team, and any player who will not add value, we will let him go.\u201d
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\n\u200eThe former Kano Pillars boss signed a one-year deal specifically to take Bayelsa United back to the elite division.
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\n\u200e\u201cWe have more than sixty players in camp. We are gradually trimming down to our maximum of 35,\u201d he explained. \u201cWith quality games and proper training, we will pick the best. That is why I have a one-season contract \u2014 to do the job in one year.\u201d
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\n\u200eMaikaba stressed that Bayelsa United will not shy away from any opponent in the abridged campaign.\u00a0
\n\u200e\u201cWe are in the NNL to face any team. We are not here to handpick opponents. Any team we are drawn with, we are ready to face. The target is to qualify for the Premier League in one season.\u201d
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\n\u200eThe Prosperity Boys find themselves in what many consider the toughest group.
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\n\u200eConference B pits Bayelsa United against: Beyond Limit FA(Ogun), Solution FC (Anambra), Akwa United (Akwa Ibom), Smart City FC (Lagos), Right-2-Win FC (Abia), Dokka Khairu FC (Osun), Abakaliki FC (Ebonyi), and Ekiti United (Ekiti).
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\n\u200eThe club says more quality friendly matches will be used to fine-tune the squad and identify weaknesses before the October kickoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By David Owei \u200e \u200e \u200eBayelsa United technical adviser, Abdul Maikaba, says the club has a clear mandate: return to the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) at the end of the 2026\/27 Nigeria National League (NNL) season. \u200e \u200eSpeaking after a preseason victory over De Go-Pro FC of Sapele, Maikaba said the Yenagoa-based Prosperity Boys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17033,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031\/revisions\/17033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}