Nigerian attacker, Issa Adekunle was on target as Zemplin Michalovce defeated Ruzomberok in a Slovakian Super Liga game played on Saturday, November 30.
Zemplin Head coach, Anton Soltis decided to bench Issa Adekunle and start the game with two strikers as Eduvie Ikoba and Alexandros Kyziridis led the attack.
However, the experiment did not live up to its potentials as Marian Chobot scored in the 11th minute to give Ruzomberok the lead. During the half time break, in a bid to stage a comeback, Anton made two substitutions as Issa Adekunle and Artur Musak were both introduced to replace Abdul Zubairu and Eduvie Ikobia.
The second half started with much better intensity from the home side, however, to their dismay, Martin Chrien doubled the lead of the visitors. The game looked out of the hands of Zemplin until Alexandros Kyziridis gave them a lifeline with a goal in the 55th minute.
With momentum on their side and pressure being mounted on Ruzemberok, Matus Marcin was assisted by Stanislav Danko to level the score line in the 62nd minute. The away team were devastated by the equalizer and Zemplin took advantage of this to lead the game in the 64th minute courtesy of Kyziridis’ second goal of the game.
Ruzemberok did not give up, they kept pushing to stage a comeback of their own. However, their hopes were shattered in the 86th minute as Issa Adekunle scored to seal the win for the home side. The goal is his 4th in 12 league games, highlighting his importance to the Slovakian team.
The win means Zemplin are now in the Championship Playoff spots as they are up to 5th on the table, with 20 points in 16 matches. They host Kormano next as they hope to maintain their 4 game unbeaten run and further solidify their spot in the top 6.
