Spain in San Jose, Costa Rica on Friday morning Nigerian time glided over Nigeria’s conquerer, Netherlands 2-1in a rainy first Semi final of the world U20 FEMALE cup.
20:Spain girls send Mexico home
Imma Gabarro aged 19 who actually plays in the midfield for Sevilla female side scored a brace (two goals in a match) in the 22nd and 25th minutes to single handedly send the Dutch girls to go vie for the Bronze medal in Sundays 3rd place match.
Born 19th November 2002, the fleet footed Gabarro unilaterally sank Australia with her hat trick (three goals in a match) in the group stages.
Her 7 goals so far in the tournament surely has secured the Golden Boot for her as nearest contenders scored three goals each. They are Esther Mbakem-Nairo of France; Esther Onyenezide of Nigeria; Maika Hamano of Japan and Magnabe Foulquet of France.
Gabarro scored three against Australia; one each against Mexico and hosts Costa Rica and now dashed two to the Netherlands.
The Dutch woke up from their deep slumber in the second half to make forays into the Spanish penalty box a pressure that paid off with a beautiful montage goal in the 54th from the right boot of 18 year old Van Good who plies her trade with Ajax.
The Spanish style of 3-4-3 which blocked the midfield against the Dutch 4-3-3 made things difficult for the Dutch who would have been beaten silly if Salma of Spain had not lost three glaring chances. She was gladly substituted though her combination with Gabarro was spectacular.
Ref Tori Penso of the USA confused the world at just 30 seconds to end the match when she stopped the match to check a penalty call for Netherlands from the VAR. The call if confirmed and the goal scored would have been the crescendo of the match which would have dragged it into extra time and created a huge chance for Netherlands to stroll into the finals for the first time.
The world watch the Spanish girls jubilate as if they had won the tournament.
Spain awaits the winner between defending Champions, Japan and France which is coming up at the same venue in about an hour.
The final is slated for 0300 hours of Sunday by Nigerian time.
Eniola Olatunji.
