The Flamingos defeated their hosts Ethiopia 1-0 in the first leg of their final round qualifying fixture at the Abebe Bikila Stadium, Addis Ababa on Friday night.
Opeyemi Ajakaye scored the winning goal in the 36 minute of the keenly contested encounter.
The Flamingos also kept their impressive clean sheet record in the qualifying series.
Bankole Olowookere’s tutored side have scored 15 goals without conceding in five outings.
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The Flamingos recorded 8-0 and 6-0 aggregate wins over Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt respectively.
The reverse fixture will take place at the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja on June 4.
A win or draw will be enough for the Flamingos to seal their passage to the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in India.
India will host the competition in October, 2022.
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Congrats Flamingos !!!
Focus! Focus! Focus! Congrats Ladies! But its not over yet.
Good win with lots of missed chances by Opeyemi, I hope the coach takes note. Up next is our flying eagles ready to complete todays feast!
Congrats girls.
Glory be to God.
Super eagles paid the price for other teams to do well for the country.
*Flamingos Fly Narrowly*
The Flamingos of Nigeria kept their chances of world cup qualification afloat with a slim yet sumptuous 1:0 away victory against a determined Ethiopia.
Though Bankole’s babes took the lead in 36 minutes through femme fatale Ajakaye, they actually had goalkeeper Omilana to thank for helping to keep the Ethiopians at bay.
As early as the 18th minute, the expandable net minder pulled off a magnificent save from Kebede’s goal bound drive. Then it was the turn of Garma to try her luck in 48 minutes in which the impregnable Omilana stood her ground.
Though she was booked for time-wasting in 76 minutes, Omilana did enough to help her team stay in the tie.
In addition to the goal scorer, all the other players pulled their weight to stay focused and resolute in getting their goal to stay on course for world cup qualification.
Despite all the goals scoring opportunities the Flamingos carved out today, Ethiopia made them sweat for this victory. It is important to point out that this is the least number of goals scored by the Flamingos in the first leg of all their qualifiers to date.
Against Egypt in the last round they scored 4 first leg goals and against Congo they scored 3. Now they scored only 1 which is an indicator of the sort of competition they should expect to come against at the World Cup in India (hoping they qualify).
So, much work needs to be done. But in the meantime, today’s victory remains most gratifying.
Flamingos should remain focused because the Ethiopians destroyed South Africa at away by 3 goals to nil.So the Ethiopians are very good at away as they drew with the Southern African team 1-1 at home.
So we shouldn’t rest on this victory,we should watch the videos how the Ethiopians approach away games.
I’m sure the Nigerian crew are aware of this anyways,so there shouldn’t be room for complacency because world cup qualification is not negotiable.
Congratulations to Flamingoes of Nigeria. They should focus to win the next and final match in Abuja so that they would eventually qualify