Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets sailed majestically into the semi-finals of the ongoing WAFU B U17 Championship in Ghana with a 3-0 whiplash of Togo’s Baby Sparrow Hawks, that catapulted them to the top of group B and set the stage for a last-four confrontation with the Baby Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire. The match, which should have been played on Wednesday evening, was postponed to Thursday morning after the venue became water-logged following a heavy downpour.

Forward Abdulmuiz Adeleke came up big in the morning encounter with a brace, while Rapha Adams did his rising reputation no harm with his second of the tournament.

Adeleke fluffed an opportunity to put Nigeria ahead in the 6^th minute, but made no mistake five minutes later with an assist from Abdulmuiz Oladimeji, to emburden a Togolese side that had lost its previous two games in the championship.

Adams, scorer of the lone goal that earned the five-time world champions all the points against Niger Republic on Sunday, got close in the 20^th minute off a pass from Oladimeji, but his hit missed the target.

The forward would make no mistake 15 minutes later, nodding home a sublime pull-out by captain Simon Cletus.

Adeleke got his brace and Nigeria’s third in the 57^th minute, off another assist from captain Cletus.

The forward should have made it a hat-trick, but fluffed a penalty kick awarded the Eaglets in the 68^th minute.

Nigeria’s Edward Ochigbo was selected as Player of the Match.

Victory meant the Golden Eaglets finished as group B winners, following Burkina Faso’s 1-0 defeat of Niger Republic in the other match of the pool.

Nigeria will now clash with Cote d’Ivoire in the second semi-final on Saturday evening (7pm Nigeria time), after the first semi-final between Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Author: NFF Media