The Golden Eaglets lived up to their billing last night at the National Stadium in Abuja when they defeated New Zealand 5-0 to book a place in the quarter finals of the ongoing FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Our boys were always going to be the favourites going into the tie against the unheralded New Zealanders, who are more renowned for their prowess in rugby, and they wasted little time in making their intentions known to the All Whites, when Edafe Egbedi opened scoring in the 14th minute following superb work down the flanks by Terry Envoh.
Ten minutes later, Stanley Okoro made it 2-0 for our boys when he was quickest to react in the area after the New Zealand goalkeeper, Coey Turipa, failed to get a firm grip of Mohammed Aliyu's thunderous drive from well outside the penalty area.
Egbedi then made it 3-0 for our boys in the 28th minute with his second goal of the match when he got on the end of a short pass in the penalty area before curling a beauty of a goal inside the far post to effectively end any hopes the New Zealanders may have nursed regarding a fight back. Any comeback aspirations nursed by the All Whites were, however, dashed five minutes later when Cameron Lindsay was ordered off the pitch for a nasty tackle.
Second half
With victory now a certainty, our boys resorted to entertaining the crowd upon resumption of play in the second half but it wasn't until the 75th minute mark before cheers were to reverberate once again around the magnificent National Stadium when super-sub, Sani Emmanuel,
latched onto a sublime pass from the impressive Okoro with his first touch of the ball before dribbling around the onrushing goalkeeper to slot into an open goal.
Five minutes later, the petite Emmanuel was once again on the receiving end of another Okoro pass and wasted little time in shooting through the legs of the goalkeeper for the fifth and final goal of the game, and with it a ticket to next Tuesday's quarter final match in Calabar where they will be up against South Korea who, a few hours earlier, edged out Mexico in a penalty shoot-out after both sides failed to find a winner after over 120 minutes of pulsating end-to-end football action.
Korea and Mexico
Having taken the lead courtesy of a 45th minute goal by Guillermo Madrigal, it took the resumption of fireworks in the second half for the Koreans to make good their pre-match claim that they were not intimidated by the football pedigree of the Mexicans. But the Koreans,
who wasted a lot of goal-scoring chances, had to wait until second half stoppage time before pulling back on level terms with the Mexicans through the hard-fighting Dong Jin Kim.
The Asians proceeded to dictate the pace in the ensuing extra-time against the jaded Mexicans but failed to grab a much needed goal. And with both sides remaining level, the inevitable penalty shootout had to come into play for the first time in Nigeria 2009 where the towering Korean goalie, Jin Young Kim, stopped Mexico's first spot kick before his teammates skilfully converted all their kicks to leave the Mexicans broken-hearted.
Also through to the quarter finals are the pair of Spain and Uruguay who will meet each other for a ticket to the semi-final also on Tuesday. Spain had it easy against Burkina Faso, defeating the West Africans 4-1 in Kano while Uruguay had to wait until extra-time before dispatching a stubborn Iran side 2-1 in Calabar.
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