Nigeria’s Under-20 football team, the
Flying Eagles, have qualified for the
2015 Africa Youth Championship. (AYC)
The Flying Eagles progressed to the
AYC on Saturday after they walked
over their opponents in the final round of qualifying,
Lesotho in Kaduna.
Match officials insisted till the last minute that they
had not received any official notification that the first
leg final qualifier has been called off after Lesotho
expressed concerns over the outbreak of Ebola virus
disease in Nigeria.
They therefore went through the traditional
walkover ceremony that involved a 15-minute wait
after the referee’s kick-off whistle.
Nigeria will thus join seven other countries including
hosts Senegal for the 2015 AYC from March 8.
Flying Eagles coach Manu Garba moved to quickly
congratulate his wards after qualification without
kicking a ball was confirmed.
“Congratulations Nigeria on this qualification. We
trained very hard in the last two months for this
match and we would really have been a lot happier
had we qualified for the AYC on the pitch and not in
the boardroom,” he said.
The Nigeria coach then took the time to show some
empathy to Lesotho regretting that the side from the
landlocked nation failed to show up for the game.
“It was a bit of a disappointment that Lesotho failed
to turn up, but there was nothing we could have
done about that."
Garba said the team will now break off from their
camping and regroup in time for the tournament
proper.
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