Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets sailed majestically into the semi-finals of the ongoing WAFU B U-17 Championship in Ghana with a 3-0 victory over Togo’s Baby Sparrow Hawks.
The victory catapulted Nigeria to the top of Group B and set the stage for a last-four confrontation with the Baby Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire.
After a heavy downpour, the venue became water-logged, postponing the match from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning.
Forward Abdulmuiz Adeleke came up big in the morning encounter with a brace, while Rapha Adams did his rising reputation no harm with his second of the tournament.
Adeleke fluffed an opportunity to put Nigeria ahead in the 6th minute but made no mistake five minutes later with assistance from Abdulmuiz Oladimeji to embarrass a Togolese side that had lost its previous two games in the championship.
Adams, the scorer of the lone goal that gave the five-time world champions all the points against the Niger Republic on Sunday, got close in the 20th minute off a pass from Oladimeji, but his hit missed the target.
About 15 minutes later, the forward would make no mistake, nodding home a sublime pull-out by captain Simon Cletus.
Adeleke scored his brace and Nigeria’s third in the 57th minute, courtesy of another assist from captain Cletus.
The forward should have made it a hat-trick, but he fluffed a penalty kick awarded to the Eaglets in the 68th minute.
Edward Ochigbo, of Nigeria, won the Player of the Match award.
Victory meant the Golden Eaglets finished as Group B winners following Burkina Faso’s 1-0 defeat of the Niger Republic in the other match of the pool.
Nigeria will now clash with Cote d’Ivoire in the second semi-final on Saturday evening (7 p.m. Nigerian time), after the first semi-final between Ghana and Burkina Faso.
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