Nigeria’s national U-20 male team, the Flying Eagles have crashed out of the U-20 Africa Youth Championship qualifiers following their elimination from the WAFU B in tournament holding in Benin Republic.
The Ladan Bosso-led lads lost 1-0 to Ghana on Wednesday but was hopeful on sneaking into the semi-final of the tournament should Ghana beat Ivory Coast by at least 2-0 in the match decided Saturday.
However, the Saturday last Group B match between Ghana and Ivory Coasr ended 1-0 in favour of the latter thereby ensuring that the Flying Eagles will not participate in next year’s U-20 Africa Youth Championship in Mauritania and the 2020 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia
Nigeria needed arch-rivals Ghana to beat the Ivorians by at least 2-0 so that they could sneak into the semifinals as Group B runners-up with a point.
However, it was not to be as Ghana fell 1-0 to the Ivorians, who thus finished as group winners, while the Black Satellites finished as runners-up.
Cote d’Ivoire will now take on Group A runners-up Niger, while Ghana tackle Burkina Faso in the other semifinal of the qualifying tournament.
The Flying Eagles have alleged a gang-up to stop them at the WAFU B qualifiers.
On Wednesday before their crucial Group B clash against Ghana, two players, Chisom Orji and Farayola Olawale, were reported to have turned in Coronavirus positive results and so had to be dropped.
However, both players as well as the rest of the squad all tested negative in another round of tests conducted two days later.
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