Eaglets shove aside Korea, ready for World Cup

By Albert Akota

Golden Eaglets of Nigeria showed class as they defeated South Korea 4-2 in their second friendly game played at HWT Sports Academy in Sao Paulo on Wednesday evening.

Samson Tijani’s shot outside the box was headed into goal by Divine Nwachukwu in the 6th minute. It was an early goal, but the South Koreans were not rattled by the goal. Rather, they attacked their more illustrious opponents and were rewarded by a penalty theee minutes later after Usman Mohammed fouled Hong Sungwook inside the box.
Steven Sunday in goal for Nigeria streched full lenght in an attempt to stop the low drive penalty taken by Oh Jaehyeok, but he could not stop the kick from.
It was 1-1 after 10 minutes. The Koreas were all over the Eaglets, piling pressure, winning the balls in the midfield tussle and launching attack after attack, but their efforts only yielded some corner kicks and some shots on goal, which failed to beat Sunday. The Koreans were rewarded with another corner kick in the 40th minute and this time around, it was well taken by Lee Taeseok and Choi Minseo rose highest to nod the ball into the net and give the Asians the lead 2-1. The lead only lasted for a minute as the Golden Eaglets equalized through a goal mouth scramble. Olakunle Olusegun was well positioned to hit a low drive into the net.
Monsur Abdulsalam and Divine Nwachukwu gave way for Akinkunmi Amoo and Jabaar Ibraheem at the begining of second half. The fresh legs gave the Eaglets fresh initiatives in the attack. When it appeared that the game was headed for a draw with five minutes remaining, Jabaar set up Olusegun again with a defence splitting pass and the attacker dribbled both the defender and the goalkeeper to make it 3-2 for Nigeria in the 86th minute.
Eaglets saved the best goal for the last when Jabaar laid a pass for Charles Etim at the edge of the box and the defender hit the ball with a curly shot that sailed into the net to give Nigeria a 4-2 victory.