African Youth Championship: Nigeria Land In Final; Beat Mali 2-0

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Nigeria’s Flying Eagles this afternoon managed to beat Mali 2-0 in the semi final of 2011 U-20 African Youth Championship, AYC, and booked a final ticket in the tournament holding in Dobsonville, South Africa.

 

Uche Nwofor scored Nigeria’s opening lone goal in the 20th minute, while substitute Stanley Okoro netted a 94th minute penalty to give the team a clear victory but the Flying Eagles did not play to expectation.

 

Both teams started the tension-soaked encounter with respect for each other, but the Malians took control of the match and dictated the pace, especially in the second half.

 

In the 11th minute of the first half, Nigeria started to take charge of the game and applied pressure on the Malian goal area. Unfortunately, they were unable to make their dominance count.

 

Toure goes down on the edge of the Nigerian box in the 13th minute, but the referee ignored him and he wasted the opportunity.

 

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Mali’s goalkeeper, Sy made a terrible mistake and almost let in Kayode’s flip, but the keeper managed to save the striker’s goal-bound effort.

 

The match became too rough at about five minutes to the end of the first half and even got worse in the second half, during which the referee issued many yellow cards to both teams.

 

When the pressure was getting too much on the Flying Eagles, Coach John Obuh substituted Chidi Osuchukwu with Egbedi Edafe, while Okoro came in at the extra time to score the spot kick.

 

Bouba Sylla got a yellow card for bringing down a Nigerian player in the box in the fourth minute of added time, which resulted in the penalty.

 

Cameroon were playing Egypt in the second semi final match as at the time of filing this report. The winner will confront the Nigeria team in the final.

 

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