Nigeria’s Flamingos suffered their second group stage defeat after going down 1-0 to France at the 2025 FIFA U-17 women’s World Cup in Morocco on Wednesday.
The Flamingos went into the Group D encounter hoping to bounce back from their 4-1 defeat to Canada in their opening group tie.
After a keenly contested match France broke the deadlock in the 81st minute through Maissa Fathallah.
Also Read: 2025 U-17 WWC: Olowookere Upbeat Flamingos Will Beat France
France have now booked their place in the round of 16 after also defeating Samoa 4-2 in their opening match.
Canada, who hammered Samoa 6-0 in the group’s other encounter on Wednesday, also go through and are currently top.
The Flamingos must now beat Samoa with a wide margin on Saturday, October 25, to stand a chance of making it to the knockout round.
By James Agberebi
5 Comments
If the rest of the world operates on meritocracy while Nigeria operates on nepotism which politicians have turn nigeria into then Nigeria can not compete outside its shores. U cannot beat nations who go about picking players on merit while u pick players on favoritism. Thats has foolhardy as pouring water on a duck’s back.
Dont mind them penalty beggers.
Maybe na me no remember again. No be this same team CS write say them play 10 friendlies without conceding a goal yet scored 44?
Deo, I beg, what are the odds or magic (abi na jazz) of capitulation of a team that scored 44 goals in first 10 matches and going on to lose unpleasantly 3 of the next 4 matches:
New Zealand (3 -4);
Canada (1-4) and today’s own
The lone victory was 3-2 against an unfortunate Paraguay team )who even beat one of our conquerors NZL) who is dragging first position with Japan after WINNING 2 GAMES!
Among the African representatives, Nigeria is the MOST EXPERIENCED in appearances (including current edition) in this u17 WWC:
Nigeria – 8
Morocco – 2
Cameroon – 3
Zambia – 3
Cote d’ivoire – this is their FIRST time
Referee was spot on in her decisions today. No Nigerian team should ever play like today and be rewarded.
Remedy going forward, NFF.
(Obviously, you should have seen the damaging fallout of the nepotism list of the flamingoes. By tribe, by religion (in terms of ball playing states), 90% of those players made mockery of the initial friendlies results. That squad list for this world cup is the most insipid decision (yet) NFF ever sanctioned for our cadet teams).
Only ONE REMEDY
1. No cadet team coach SHOULD EVER HAVE HIS (no lady is even coaching any of our national teams AT ANY LEVEL) contract renewed again. Let us encourage high turnover of coaches at those levels. After all, players and staff only come to camp once there are qualifiers and then the championship proper.
By letting all coaches understand that it’s one-off experience (I read we have a lot of FIFA licensed grade a coaches in Nigeria but only the mediocre that are powerfully connected get the top jobs), then they will NOT TAKE PLAYERS FROM ONE SIDE OF THE COUNTRY that’s not even noted for most talented footballers over the years.
I watched when our coach tried to make double substitutions tonight. The names put forward were closely similar to the ones removed and he even later substituted a substitute.
When a coach knows he just has one chance to make an impression, he’ll put his best foot forward.
If he succeeds, fine, still move away. By doing so, other nations will take notice and hire them and in turn help us train them regularly and make them more marketable.
In one word, let us expose more coaches and their skillset to see if they flirt with the modern times.
As it is now, since our local coaches have failed to look beyond their noses and work with imposed players that are constantly embarrassing us on global stage as if we are debutants everytime, WE MIGHT SOON HAVE FOREIGN COACHES FOR OUR CADET TEAMS.
The local ones are now like the blind leading the blind. How can a “less brained” coach discover a talented youngster or imbibe some football rudiments at their young age?
Never.
The final cadet world cup this year (since male under 17 world cup in Qatar next month, we will be absent) is the falconets next month. At least, I haven’t heard of outstanding friendly results from them and the coach is a relatively new kid on the block Aduku.
No coach should have a second chance apart from the senior teams because they play matches nearly every 2 months.
When more coaches are exposed, after all, training them is not the forte of NFF, they will get plum jobs elsewhere and later return to improve our leagues and young teams and clubs.
For unwanted record purposes, I’ve gone through their results in previous group stage matches of the other 7 editions and THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE ARE LOSING OUR FIRST TWO MATCHES OF THE GROUP STAGE.
If our football is not dead like this (ndi patriots), I wonder what is.
Again, are we debutants at this championship?
I wonder who they played in those 10 matches and scored 44 goals? A team that couldn’t score more than one goal in 3 hours of football already in Morocco?
No, it could not have been a propaganda by our media na!
This team is so atrocious I have not seen one outstanding player.
NFF was so bitter in recklessness that the 3 goalkeepers of this team are “different” from the main squad.
It’s a forced marriage to elevate players from a certain … because their proponents in the senior teams are being told to be eased out and so they don’t have “suitable replacements”.
So, why not force us to catch them young?
We will not keep a clean sheet in this tournament. Even Samoa will score against us.
I don’t care if we beat them (and qualify as best loser because we’ll only be disgraced in the next round if we do), all I care about is this coach should not near our national team again.
He’s outlived his usefulness.
No talent in this “magic results in 10 friendlies” team.
Scouts will weep and shudder on how we’ve fallen so spectacularly.
NFF, well done, well played
We will never forget this nepotism squad. Never. It was blatant. And the joke is already on you.
This current under 17 team is clueless and a disgrace. The goal keeper is not fit to man the goal posts. No coordination either in midfield or attack. The coach should please be fired as this is unacceptable NFF. Thanks