By Eniola Olatunji
The quarterfinal match between Africa’s leading U20 male football team, Flying Eagles of Nigeria, and the Defending Champions, Junior Taranga Lions of Senegal, scheduled for Monday at 2 pm may end on a photo finish where the stamina, skills, and technical acumen of the two coaches will earn the victory.
On current form, it surprisingly showed from stats that against expectations, the Defence may lose the match for Nigeria instead of Attack, which Patmos Media Line reported was suffering from Kwashiorkor of goals.
Both teams qualified from 2nd positions from their groups B and C; with same goals margin of scoring 3 and conceding 2; but detailed look at the essential stats shows Senegal had a total 36-23 shots at goal compared to Nigeria’s 19-14 and 10-12 shots on target to Nigeria’s 14-7 meaning the Senegalese are Raiders but they are poorer at scoring like Nigeria. It is the Corner kicks of 7-2 to Senegal and 8-15 that shows given much pressure, the Nigerian Defence that loves to overlap may have their knees buckled and dash victory to their opponents.
I strongly conject, (reaching an analytical thinking) from stats consideration, that the match will end in penalty shootouts, since this is Knockout stage where a winner must emerge. From records, the two teams played five matches with Senegal winning three and Nigeria two, and Senegal scored 6 goals with Nigeria 5.
On 8th March 2015 Senegal bowed 1-3 in an AFCON match; on 22nd March 2015 Nigeria won by a lone goal away; from that time, Senegal took over winning 2-0 on 16th December 2018 in a WAFU encounter; cut the Eagles’ wing 2-1 in a world cup match of 3rd May 2019 and then won by a lone goal on 19th February 2023 in an AFCON match.
Like wise, the Taranga boys rising has been progressive from 2017 when in Zambia they lost the finals to Zambia 0-2; in 2019 at Niger Republic, They lost 2-3 to Mali after Extra Time of 1-1 and at the last competition incidentally in Egypt where they won their first title The Pseudo-Scorpioide of Gambia fell 0-2..
In that completion, Senegal had beaten Nigeria by a lone goal in a group A match at the Cairo International Stadium handled by Ref Jalal Jaged of Morocco and I recall Nigeria went on to thrash Tunisia 4-0 to get the Bronze.
Your guess may be as good as mine that any carelessness may cost any of the team the match. Will the Defending Champions go home at this stage? Don’t forget a win in the quarters means a ticket to the world cup in Chile.
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The Quarterfinal pairings on Monday, 12th May:
- Nigeria vs Senegal at 2 pm.
- Morocco vs Sierra Leone at 5pm.
- Ghana vs host Egypt at 5pm.
- South Africa vs DR Congo at 8pm
The Semifinal Pairings on 15th May:
- SAF/DRC vs Ngr/Sen at 7pm
At Suez Canal Stadium, Ismaila
- Mar/SLE vs Gha/Egy at 10pm
At 30 June Stadium.
Final is on 18th at Cairo International Stadium at 10pm but the 3rd place match will be decided before the final. All the semifinalists will represent Africa at the world cup in Chile..
Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line. #CAF #NFF #KFF #MFA #TFA #GFA #DRCFA #SAFA #SLFF
