Nigeria’s Flamingos hammered Egypt 4-0 in the first leg third round of the 2022 U-17 women’s World Cup qualifiers inside the Moshood Abiola stadium, Abuja on Sunday.
A brace from Omowunmi Bello and a goal each from Opeyemi Ajakaiye and Miracle Usani secured the comfortable first leg win.
Ajakaye opened scoring in the 28th before Bello made it 2-0 in the 38th minute.
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In the 62nd minute Bello got her second of the game to make it 3-0 while Usani added the fourth on 54 minutes.
The second leg comes up in Egypt in two weeks time with the winner over two legs advancing into the final round.
Three teams will represent Africa at this year’s 2022 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in India billed for 11th to 30th October.
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..Flamingos Mummify Egyptians..
In what turned out to be a soul satisfying outcome, the ferocious Flamingos of Nigeria mummified their Egyptian visitors today with 4 unrequited goals in Abuja to climb higher in the pyramid of cadet women’s world cup qualification.
First half goals from Opeyemi Ajakaiye and Omowunmi Bello left the Egyptians wrapped in a tomb of despair before the break. By the time Bello and then Miracle Usani added two more goals for the rampant Flamingos in the second half, Nigeria’s superiority and the outcome of the duel was not in ‘de-nile’, 4:0 to Nigeria.
Coach Bankole had said before the encounter that his girls were in the mood to approach this match with the same pitiless savagery that saw them obliterate Congo 5:0 in their last match. And indeed, it took just 3 minutes for deadly Ajakaiye to draw a foul just outside Egypt’s 18 yard box but the resultant freekick was wasted.
Just 10 minutes later, the Egyptian defence was still living dangerously as Comfort Folorunsho’s ferocious drive went agonisingly wide.
The Egyptian defence continued to live on a knifes edge in 17 minutes after Ajakaiye’s eloquent ball control and pristine swivel saw her through on goal before launching her effort painfully over the bar.
Attacking wise, it was one way traffic at this point as our fabulous female teenagers were the ones looking most menacing.
So, it came as no surprise as Ajakaiye’s neatly taken effort made 1:0 for Nigeria in just 28 minutes. With that sort of sweet and sumptuous strike, little wonder she can expect a box of ‘Pharaoh-Rocher’ Chocolates from her coach afterwards.
By this point the Flamingos were dictating play and stamping their authority right across the pitch. Even goalkeeper Faith Omilana had to be alert to pull off a smart save from Nadia’s well taken belter in 30 minutes.
Just when the Egyptians thought they were gaining a foothold in the match, Omowunmi Bello pulled the rug from right under their feet in the most cruelest fashion with a ghoulish header off a corner kick routine in 38 minutes to make it 2 goals to nil.
You have to forget the legend of Anubis, these Nigerian Flamingos are legends in the making.
Captain Dah Zossu Alvine had admonished fans to expect beautiful football in this encounter and the team was delivering in style in the searing Abuja sun.
Despite Ajakaiye inexplicably missing an absolute sitter early in the second half, you don’t need to understand Egyptian hieroglyphs to see the writing on the wall: this game had more Nigerian goals in the tomb to be unwrapped and resurrected.
But, give credit to the Egyptians, they still had a sphinx of struggle in them as their attacking efforts gave rise to a succession of corner kicks which our girls competently brushed aside.
But Egyptian efforts came to nought as it was Miracle Usani who pulled Nigeria further ahead in 54 minutes with a swish and swanky low drive that proves she already has a ‘Foot-in-Common’ with some of the legendary female sharpshooters of the game. 3:0 at that point.
The Egyptians were shell shocked, and their coaching crew no less so for their inability to stem the rampaging tide of the Flamingos was going to cost them more than a visit to the ‘cairo-practor’.
The final nail to the Egyptian coffin would come in the way of Omowunmi Bello’s brace in 62 minutes as she was prescient enough to blast past the on rushing goalkeeper for Nigeria’s fourth and final goal of the game.
The Egyptians, to their credit, never stopped hurstling. They had a freekick in 68 minutes which had to be addressed and even into the 75th minutes they were charging forward in search of the treasured away goal, which eluded them due to disciplined and resolute display from Bankole’s damsels.
Although Bello and Ajakaiye came close to adding further gloss to the scoreline in the dying minutes with Ajakaiye even having beautiful goal ruled marginally offside, the scoreline stayed 4:0.
The Flamingos team captain did say that they had learnt a lot of great and exciting stuff ahead of this game, the way they scored all four goals bore witness to this. We saw the variety of a header, a low drive, displacing the goalkeeper and decimating Egyptian defence with balls flying in from left, right and centre.
It was a treasure-trove of ancient football artistry retrofitted into an ultra modern tactics which produced masterclas soccer from our sub-saharan classy young ladies.
This was indeed a sumptuous spectacle in which the Flamingos thoroughly entertained and impressed in equal measure with the ruthless efficiency in which they went about their business.
It was a delightful display and a vigorous victory that will continue to make their peers across the continent to sit up and take notice.
With a 4 goals deficit, the chances of Egypt overturning the outcome in the second leg is effectively buried deep in the Dead Sea.
I hear they are desperately looking for Moses’ staff, the one he used to part the Red sea.
They are still searching as we speak.
Hahahaha!!! 🙂 🙂
I see what you did there Pompei!
With the way things are going female national teams in Nigeria wil be getting more bonus payment than their male counterpart in the near future..
Absolutely.
Sweet one make we still enjoy this one small!!!
Chima, with the footballing calendar already saturated with plentiful women’s football this year, the blow of the Super Eagles missing the world cup is somewhat softened.
Cheers to the ladies. Make the guys dey take selfie for field and the goal keepers dey Lago anyhow LMAO!
In fact ehn, with the SE messing things up for us, our ladies have been holding it down.
We are smiling again. I am in support of increasing the ladies’ bonuses. Let them collect more than their male counterparts.
We Delivered On Our Promise: Flamingos Captian
After embalming Egypt with 4 goals to nil in the semi-final first leg under-17 women’s world cup qualifier on Sunday, members of the team have been talking on how they made good on their promise to Nigeria fans.
“We are very very happy with the outcome of this encounter,” said captain Alvine Dah-Zossu. “We promised to do our best and that was exactly what we delivered. Well, we actually made some mistakes so we will work on these in our next training sessions so that we can deliver an even more compelling and exciting experience in the second leg in Cairo.” She said.
“With the way Egypt set up, it was clear they only planned to be overly defensive,” said Head Coach Bankole. “So we had to work to penetrate them and get behind their defensive wall to grab our goals despite their best efforts,” he added.
“The Egyptian coach had boasted that they will defeat us by three goals here, so, how did that work for them? We actually hammered them four unreplied goals. I am not one to boast but I noticed several loopholes on both sides. We will work on ours and the results will be evident on the pitch in the second leg,” concluded coach Bankole.
Undeterred, the Egyptian coach believes they might yet spring surprises in the second leg.
“In Cairo, we will be able to have a more better performance and result as well. This is football and anything is possible.” Said Egypt coach Mohamed Moshen.
There is a rumour circulating on social media that FIFA might be mulling over cancelling the already postponed under-17 women’s world cup in India due to fresh corona virus outbreak. As we are several months away from the tournament, I will take this rumour with a pinch of salt.
I thought we were likely to meet South Africa in the final round of qualifiers to reignite old rivalry but they went down to a shock 3:0 away loss to Ethiopia. So much for pre-match predictions!
The second leg against Egypt is set for 1 May 2022.