Adedayo Emmanuel
The Super Eagles of Nigeria Saturday evening have qualified for the quarter finals of the African Cup of Nations beating their Cameroonian counterparts 3-2 in Alexandria, Egypt.
The two teams over various generations of players had been at each other’s neck in several battles for supremacy.
A total of five goals were scored and Nigeria was the better team after 90 minutes.
The power brokers of African football; Nigeria and Cameroon must prove a point whenever they meet. The rivalry was renewed in Egypt but Cameroon was not as lucky as they had been during some past encounters.
Two goals scorer, Odion Ighalo was grateful to God for the neede win. “I am very happy I thank God we won the game it was a difficult game but we fight very hard from start to the finish and this is a very good team work this is very good for the team we altogether congratulate the team.”
“We can score goal, we played better in the first half even though we were losing the game, we had to change the game plan and the goals came,” he said.
The Nigerians would be missed in their Alexandria stadium where they had played four games winning three.
“We have two days more to recuperate and we are not going to play in Alexandria again. We are going away from home, a nice city,” said Gernor Rorh, coach of the Super Eagles.
The second game of the day would take place in Cairo between the host Egypt and winner of the 1996 edition, South Africa.
While Egypt is favoured being the home team, football is dynamic as the Bafana Bafana are also battle ready to contend for the ticket which is still available.
Nigerian cities are agog in celebration of the win against arch rivals, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon. The celebration would definitely go into the night as football fans are elated and waiting for the result of the Egypt versus South Africa match which would determine the next opponents of the eagles.
Match statistics revealed that Nigeria had 40% ball procession while Cameroon had 60%. Meanwhile Nigeria had 12(8) shot at goal while Cameroon had 11(6). Nigeria had 18 fouls with Cameron having 14. There were 13 corner kicks out of which Nigeria had six. Cameroon had two of the three yellow cards of the match. The central Africans were caught in offside positions four times while the Super Eagles were found once. The two teams made three substitutions each.
