African Youth Championship in Algeria on Sunday. The Malian cut the Flying Eagles 1-0 in a game bookmakers had given to Nigeria as the defending champions. Nigeria won the last edition held two years ago in South Africa under the coach John Obuh.
Nantes of France striker, Adama Niane scored the only goal of the game in the match played at the Stade Ahmed Zabana.
Nigeria started well attacking with Olarenwaju Kayode free kick bouncing off the palms of Mali keeper Ali Yiringo inside the first 10 minutes. But about 15 minutes later the Malians took the lead off a corner kick that was poorly defended by Nigeria.
The Flying Eagles failed to clear from Tiekoro Keita’s corner kick leaving Niane unmarked in the area to rifle home with his left-foot.
Thereafter, the Flying Eagles began to push for the equaliser but their opponents kept their one-goal lead intact. The closest the Nigerian lads got to scoring was via what was disallowed by the referee as an off side goal.
In the restart, substitute Edafe Egbedi missed Nigeria’s best chance in the 46th minute from close range after heading badly off target at the near post where he was totally unmarked.
After other several attempts at scoring by the Nigerians the Malians held on to grab the full points. Nigeria now need an outright win against Gabon on Wednesday to establish any real chance of going beyond the group stage.
The Sunday result hardly reflected the hopeful results posted by the Flying Eagles as they prepared for the African championship. They camped in Tunisia where they won many of their games including a credible draw against respected Esperance club before they took the flight to Oran, Algeria.
The Nigerian officials assured their fans after the Sunday game that they would work hard to qualify from the group. As part of their build up to the match of Wednesday, the entire team stayed back to watch the first half of the match between DR Congo and Gabon.
The PUNCH could reach Obuh on telephone on Sunday but an official who spoke with us explained the situation.
“We were meant to leave after our game but the entire team is watching the next match for obvious reasons,” he said.
