FIFA U-20 World Cup: Nigeria join S/Africa, Morocco to reach R-16
Nigeria, Monday morning, joined South Africa and Morocco to reach the knock-out Round of 16 stage of the ongoing FIFA U-20 World Cup holding in the South American country of Chile.
This follows the conclusion of the group stage games played on Monday morning.
While the U-20 teams of South Africa and Morocco qualified by finishing among the automatic highest placed in their groups, Nigeria’s Flying Eagles emerged as Best Losers from their group which included Norway, Colombia and Saudi Arabia.
The Flying Eagles had in the first match, last week lost narrowly by 0-1 to Norway, the team beat Saudi Arabia by 3-2 and this Monday morning, held Colombia to a 1-1 draw to emerge as Best third-place finishers with 4 points from three matches.
The Round of 16 fixtures will be played from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, respectively, this week.
Nigeria will play Argentina on Wednesday, while South Africa will also face Colombia on same Wednesday, and Morocco will tackle South Korea on Friday.
Meanwhile, Africa’s other representative, Egypt narrowly missed out on qualification to the last 16 despite defeating host country, Chile by 2-1 in the final group match as FIFA instead awarded the ticket to the latter on Fair Play Rules.
Egypt had accumulated more yellow cards than Chile in the tournament, FIFA disciplinary rule said.
The winners of the encounter will progress to the quarter-final stage.
The Flying Eagles, seven-time African champions put up an impressive performance at the Estadio Fiscal de Talca, during the Colombia match, showing resilience and attacking flair throughout the encounter, hitting the woodwork several times.
However, the South American country took the lead in the 51st minute through Kener Gonzalez, with the Nigerian team constantly pressing for an equaliser.
Their persistence paid off in the 86th minute when captain Daniel Bameyi calmly converted a penalty after a Colombian defender handled Tahir Maigana’s goal-bound effort.
The result was enough to secure Nigeria’s place in the knockout stage as one of the best third-placed teams.
The Flying Eagles will face Argentina at the Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos in Santiago on Wednesday, which will be a repeat of their memorable 2–0 victory over the same opponents in San Juan at a previous edition hosted by Argentina.
