After defeating Togo 3-0 in their final group match on Thursday to move top of the table, Nigeria will play Ivory Coast in the semi-finals of the 2017 WAFU B U-17 Championship in Ghana on Saturday.
The Golden Eaglets secured their second victory and improved their goal differential over Burkina Faso with a brace from striker Abdulmuiz Adeleke and another goal from Rapha Adams in the postponed final Group B match at the University of Ghana’s Rugby Pitch.
Adeleke came up big in the morning encounter with his double, while Rapha Adams did his rising reputation no harm with his second of the tournament.
After missing a chance to put Nigeria ahead in the sixth minute, Adeleke made no mistake five minutes later with an assist from Abdulmuiz Oladimeji while Rapha added the second to give Nigeria a 2-0 lead into the break.
Adeleke got his brace and Nigeria’s third in the 57th 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 68th minute.
Nigeria’s Edward Ochigbo was selected as Player of the Match.
The match ought to have been played on Wednesday evening but was postponed to Thursday morning after the venue became water-logged following a downpour.
It didn’t, however, go down without another delay on Thursday as the pitch was only marked and the goalposts erected while the two teams waited well past the 9am kick-off time.
Nigeria will now clash with Ivory Coast in the second semi-finals on Saturday evening (7pm Nigeria time), after the first semi-final between Ghana and Burkina Faso.
The two finallists will pick the tickets to next year’s U-17 AFCON, which serves as qualifiers for the expanded 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar.
