By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
…Ghana Survive Senegal in Difficult Penalty Shootouts 7-6
NIGERIA’s U17 female football team, the Flamingoes Saturday evening at the Stade De Kegue, Lome Togo ousted their ambitious counterparts from Benin Republic 5-3 to gross an aggregate of 8-5 goals to qualify for the final tournament of the world U17 class in October 2026.
Star girl, Queen Joseph who scored in the 3-2 first leg win at Remo, Nigeria rooted out the Benin girls with a brilliant hat trick scoring 20th minute; scored from the penalty spot given by Ref Shamirah Nabadda of Uganda in the 54th minute and completed her hat trick in the 75th minute.
Nancy Akpan had opened scoring for Nigeria in Togo in the 6th minute and Esther Stephen made it 2-0 for Nigeria in the 14th minute before the Queen of the Green Grass showed them pepper with her hat trick.
Benin girls scored through their promise babe, Gondonou who got a brace scored in the 11th and 64th minutes. She got a goal in Remo against Nigeria. Hermionne Lokossou scored Benin’s 2nd goal in the 56th minute.
Nigeria and Benin had met twice before at this level and category at a friendly match of 19th December 2024 where Nigeria won 2-0 and last Saturday in Remo, Nigeria when Nigeria came from behind to subdue them 3-2.
Benin is in their 2nd appearances at the last phase of the African qualifier breaking the limit this year appearing in the 3rd round after their 2nd round stoppage in 2022.
Nigeria is in the 9th appearances at the African qualifier stages and had qualified for the world cup finals 8 times before but their best performances was in India 2022 when they lost the Bronze to Germany 2-3 via penalty shootouts after 3-3 at full time. Nigera had in India lost the semifinal to Columbia 5-6 via penalty shootouts after a goalless full time.
With the 8-5 goals victory, Nigeria has secured a spot to the world finals with Ghana. The Ghanaian girls qualified on penalties at the Accra Sports Stadium today after a 1-1 draw with Senegal making it 2-2 on aggregate. First leg in Dakar was 1-1. Ghana scaled through 7-6 on penalty shootouts.
Tomorrow the two other slots will be at stake. Ethiopia that lost 1-2 to Zambia away in the 1st leg will try to overturn the Zambians in Addis Ababa; South African girls has a tedious job to beat Kenya that they lost to at home 0-2 now in Nairobi which may be under hostile conditions for the Xenophobic trouble which Kenya countered by cutting off public power supply they had been giving some parts of South Africa.
The four qualifiers by tomorrow night will join hosts Morocco to represent CAF at the world finals that will run 17th October to 7th November in Morocco.
North Korea that has won the title four times will be on ground as the defending champions having beaten Netherlands in the 2025 finals.
#2026U17FWWC #CAF #WAFU
#NFF #BFF.
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