I won’t lie, 2–0 hurt.

It is never nice watching your team lose, especially when you feel there was something in the game for them.

I didn’t get to watch the full match live, unfortunately. Like many Sporting Lagos fans, I had to rely on the highlights posted by the club. So I won’t pretend I saw every single moment or every decision that was made.

But from what I saw, one thing stood out to me:

Sporting Lagos actually played football.

And strangely enough, that is what gives me hope after a 2–0 defeat.

We lost the game. But I didn’t watch those highlights and come away thinking this is a team with nothing to offer.

Far from it.

Uloko’s first goal involvement hurt, but I won’t turn on our captain

I have to mention Uloko because, unfortunately, the first goal had something to do with his positioning.

The ball was delivered into an area that was Uloko’s territory, and he simply missed the player he was supposed to pick up. The header came from his zone, and Doma made us pay.

It was a mistake.

But I’m not going to use one moment to rewrite Uloko’s story at Sporting Lagos. He has been a very good player for us over previous seasons, and he is our captain.

One bad moment doesn’t suddenly make him a bad defender.

Defensive mistakes at this level can be brutally expensive. You can play well, dominate periods of a game and do almost everything right, but if you lose concentration for one moment, the ball is in your net.

That’s what happened.

I just hope we learn from it.

Aliyu was doing the right things… until the final part

Aliyu is an interesting one for me because I actually liked his movement.

He wasn’t standing around waiting for the ball.

He was making runs.

He was finding spaces.

His movement was causing problems and, at times, he looked like he could get himself into dangerous positions.

But then came the frustrating part.

The shots lacked power.

And that is something that has to improve.

Getting into the right positions is half the battle. The other half is making the goalkeeper genuinely worry when you finally get your opportunity.

There were moments when I wanted Aliyu to just hit it properly.

Put your foot through the ball.

Make the goalkeeper work.

Because the movement was there.

The output just wasn’t.

And that’s actually encouraging because I’d rather be trying to fix the finishing than trying to teach a player how to get into dangerous positions in the first place.

Hadi… the vision is different

Then there is Hadi.

I really like watching this guy.

His vision is impeccable.

But it’s not just the passing.

His movement is elite.

He seems to understand where the next space is before the ball gets there. There were moments where I found myself thinking, “How did he even see that?”

Those are the qualities you cannot easily coach into a player.

You can work on technique.

You can work on finishing.

You can work on physicality.

But that kind of vision and movement?

That’s special.

I want to see more of Hadi because I genuinely think there is a player there who can become very important for this Sporting Lagos team.

And Abraham’s red card…

This is where I have mixed feelings.

Technically, I understand the decision.

If you’re the last defender and you stop a clear attempt at goal, you can be sent off.

That’s the rule.

So I’m not going to sit here and pretend the referee invented the red card.

But what annoyed me was the way it happened.

Abraham’s attempt to stop the attack didn’t look malicious to me.

There was no sense of him trying to hurt the striker or cynically taking him out.

And, honestly, I felt the striker played the situation very well.

He went down very easily and the referee bought it.

Maybe that’s football. Maybe that’s cleverness from the striker.

But as a Sporting fan watching it back, it was incredibly frustrating.

Especially because once you’re down to ten men, the entire game changes.

But here’s the thing…

For all the mistakes.

For the red card.

For the missed opportunities.

For the 2–0 scoreline.

I came away impressed.

And that might sound strange.

How can you lose 2–0 and say you’re impressed?

Because I saw a Sporting Lagos team that still wanted to play its football.

The movements were good.

The combinations were good.

The link-ups were good.

There was an understanding between players.

There were moments where we moved the ball with purpose and created situations that showed exactly what this team could become.

And that, for me, is the biggest positive from this game.

We didn’t abandon our identity because we were away from home.

We didn’t just spend the game kicking the ball forward and hoping for something.

We played our game.

And even after going behind, there were moments where I could see the ideas.

That’s important.

We lost, but we played

Of course, I would rather have won.

Give me three points over a beautiful performance any day.

But if you’re asking me what I saw in this first game, I saw a team that has something to build on.

We need to be more ruthless.

Aliyu needs more power behind those finishes.

We need to concentrate better defensively.

And Abraham will probably be wondering how that challenge ended with him walking off the pitch.

But the foundations are there.

The football is there.

And that is why I’m not walking away from this game feeling that the future is bleak.

Quite the opposite.

I saw enough to believe that this Sporting Lagos team can grow into something.

We lost 2–0 to Doma United.

But we played.

And for me, that’s the hope.