Nigeria U20 head coach, Abdu Maikaba, admitted that his side played against the best team of the tournament in Wednesday’s U20 WAFU B semi-final win against hosts Cote d’Ivoire, www.aclsports.com reports.
The Flying Eagles battled past the Baby Elephants, holding their nerve to secure victory in a dramatic penalty shootout following a hard-fought contest.
Speaking after the match, Maikaba praised his players for their determination but acknowledged that the hosts were the tournament’s standout team, admitting they produced an excellent performance despite ending up on the losing side.
”We played a very tough game against the host nation,” Maikaba began to pressmen after the contest. I will confess that we met the best team of the tournament in this game. They played so well, but we were determined to get the win no matter the way, and we are glad that we got it in the end.
”Tactically, we worked on our set-pieces very well. We lost from one, and we knew that if we practised them a lot, we could use them to our own advantage. We watched clips of Côte d’Ivoire against Niger and found that they struggled with long balls into the area. Coincidentally, we scored from two long throw-ins in the game,” the former Wikki Tourists head coach explained his side’s approach to the game.
Goalkeeper Clinton Lawani made two stops in the penalty shootout, while Nigeria missed just one of their spotkicks to advance at the expense of the hosts. Maikaba said it was a result of their preparation before the contest at the Stade Charles Konan Banny in Yamoussoukro.
”We practised penalties over the past few days because we knew the match could be decided that way. We prepared all the players who finished the match to take at least one penalty. We got it right because we scored four of our first five penalties, and we got the win,” Maikaba concluded.
Nigeria will face Burkina Faso in the final of the tournament on Sunday for a place in next year’s U20 AFCON in Ghana.
