…Morocco Tops Group B.
…See Quarterfinal Pairing.
Africa’s U20 football best, The Flying Eagles on Wednesday evening at the 30 June Stadium in Cairo Egypt fumbled and wobbled into her 18th ever quarterfinals in a 2-2 draw game with less fancied Rising Stars of Kenya in the last group B qualifying game.
Despite dominating the game throughout, Nigeria trailed Kenya after Midfielder, Wangaga scored a penalty goal in the 6th minute before Nathaniel Anierhi equalized from a Simon Cletus pass in the 13th minute. In the 68th minute Kenya got the 2nd goal through Willliam Gitanu and Daniel Bamayi came to equalize via penalty kick.
It was a night that showed Nigeria’s deficiency as a team plagued with kwashiorkor of goals having 19-14 shots at goal with 7-5 on target; Nigeria had 60-40% possession meaning the Eagles were slightly in control stringing 460-308 passes but Kenya earned 3-0 corner kicks bagging the only two yellow cards as they also conceded 18-13 fouls.
The Wednesday result was not palatable for Nigeria before now had played Kenya 4 times winning 3 matches and a draw game that recorded 13 goals of which Nigeria scored ten.
On 7th September 2009 Nigeria dazed Kenya 3-0 in a world cup qualifier; beat Kenya 3-2 in the 2nd leg of that qualifier on 14th November 2009; Repeated the call to ‘frog jump’ with another 3-0 in a friendly of 29th Match 2011 but played 1-1 on 23rd March 2013 in a world cup qualifier.
Kenya has never gone past the group stages at the U20 CAF grand finale in their 3 appearances now.
Nigeria in the group opener defeated Morocco by a lone goal when Kenya lost 2-3 to Morocco; in the second round, Tunisia whipped Kenya 3-1 while Nigeria played a goalless draw with Morocco.
In the other group match played simultaneously, Morocco spanked Tunisia 3-1 with Ayman Arguigue scoring the first for Morocco in the 44th minute; Defender Aris Doubal equalized for Tunisia in the 53rd minute.
It was a spectacular of the North African derby as Morocco’s overlapping Defender, Ismail Bestakhty scored the 2nd goal in the 86th minute and as spectators were trooping out Jones El-Abdellaoui scored the 3rd goal in 90+2nd minute.
With the two matches played, Morocco won Group B with 7 points having 2 wins, a draw scoring 6 goals and Conceding 3; Nigeria placed 2nd with 5 points winning just a match and drawing two scoring 3 goals and conceding 3; Tunisia placed 3rd with 3 points with a win lost two matches scoring4 goals and conceding 5 while Kenya goes home after rocking the bottom of the group with her only draw from Nigeria scoring 5 goals and conceding 8.
All quarterfinal matches will be decided on Tuesday 12th May. 1st QF is Group A Winner vs 3rd BC; 2nd QF is Group C Winner vs 3rd A/B. They go to meet in the semifinal.
Morocco as Group B winner will meet Group A Runners up in the 3rd QF while Nigeria will face Group C runners up in the 4th Qf and you will know the semifinalists in this. A Nigeria vs Morocco semifinal is possible.
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The U20 grand finale playing at four venues that started on April 27th ends on May 18th and the four semifinalists will represent Africa at the world cup final in Chile.
Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line.
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