F/Eagles gun for seventh title at AYC

The Flying Eagles of Nigeria will today battle against host Senegal in their quest to win their seventh title in the U-20 Africa Youth Championship.

The Nigeria team tutored by Manu Garba and assisted by Nduka Ugbade defeated the Black Satellites of Ghana in the semi-finals, while Senegal inflicted a shocking defeat on highly-rated Mali in the second semi-finals. Today’s grand finale means a lot to the Nigerian coach who is leading a flock of talented players who graduated under him from the Under-17 category where they were world champions.
For the championship that started in 1977 with Morocco and Cote d’Ivoire picking the tickets to represent Africa at the U-20 World Cup hosted by Tunisia, the Flying Eagles of Nigeria had recorded six championship victories at the AYC level achieved in 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 2005 (Benin Republic) and 2011(South Africa). Nigeria stands out as the country with the most victories at the African Under-20 category with Egypt’s four victories as second best. Egypt also won the last edition hosted in Algeria after they defeated Ghana 5-4 on penalties.

The Nigerian team from available data has a better chance and grounded experience of winning the trophy for the seventh time after playing in eight finals and today’s making it the ninth as against Senegal’s first time. In 1983 and 1989 the Senegalese were eliminated in the preliminaries, while they crashed out in the group stage in the 1993 and 1995 editions.

These were the best they did before this year’s performance which remains their best in the history of the competition, reaching the finals in their fifth participation as against Nigeria’s 16th. Nigeria has lost two finals; 1-0 in 1999 to hosts Ghana and 1-0 to hosts Congo in 2007. Today’s final would be a rematch of the opening game of the competition which Nigeria won convincingly 3-1 beating the host in front of home crowd. The final according to CAF’s schedule will kick-off at the 45,000-capacity Leopold Sedar Senghor Stadium at 7.30pm local time, which will be 8.30pm in Nigeria.

The Junior Teranga Lions are n o t letting down as they believe strongly that they have the players to upset the star-studded Nigerian team who they h a v e d e – scribed as beatable. Senegal’s star player, Moussa Kone, said ahead of the grand finale that: “Ours is a new team without exposure and experience unlike the Flying Eagles of Nigeria. They have the tradition of youth tournaments and have been very successful.

However, I can tell you that they are not as powerful as the media describe them. What I think they possess and keep exploiting over their adversaries is experience. They know how to manage time, strength and even the space on the field. However, we have better physical condition and speed. If we can put those together on Sunday, Nigeria would go home with silver.”

The team’s coach, Joseph Koto, is also optimistic that his wards would put smiles on the faces of the people after the final game against Nigeria. It is a different song in the camp of the Flying Eagles who are more determined than the Senegalese and have vowed to win the first international trophy for Nigeria in 2015. Championing this cause is tournament’s top goal scorer, Taiwo Awoniyi, who has promised to score goals against the Junior Teranga Lions just as he did in the opening game of the competition. “We are going to beat Senegal very well to win the cup. At this point, we are unstoppable. We shall bring the cup to Nigeria on Monday, this we are very sure.”

Flying Eagles coach, Manu Garba, said his boys have been wellmotivated to win the cup. They are in their best character and they won’t rest until they pick the winner’s trophy. The crowd may be against us, but that is immaterial. We beat them before, we shall beat them again.” The next host of the championship in 2017 is Zambia