Morocco 2025 : Flamingos through to final qualifying round

Nigeria’s U-17 National team, Flamingos are through to the final round of qualifiers for the FIFA 2025 U-17 female world Cup

The team which last weekend defeated their South African counterparts by 3-1 in Pretoria in the first leg of the qualifiers, showed class again against the girls from the Rainbow Nation whom they defeated by 2-0 in the reverse fixture decided Saturday evening at the Remo Sports Stadium, Ikenne Remo, Ogun State to record an aggregate victory of 5-1 against the South Africans.

The Coach Bankole Olowookere tutored side played with caution in the first 30 minutes of the game until the 38th minute when Harmony Chidi who netted a brace in the first leg rose to the occasion to give Nigeria an early lead.
The South Africans responded two minutes later but their goal was ruled offside, ending the first half 1-0 in favour of the Flamingos.

Both teams came into the second half with cautious optimism, making some incursions in each other’s goal area but a long range shot from outside the 18 yard box by Aishat Animashau in the 57 minute beat the South African goalkeeper to give Nigeria a two goal lead.

This goal made South Africa to make three changes in a row including their goalkeeper to see if they can salvage the situation but this could not stop the dominance of the Nigerian girls.

After the second goal, the game dragged on till the full 90 minutes without producing any other goal.

Speaking shortly after the match, Coach Bankole Olowookere expressed happiness with the result; saying that his girls played to instruction even as he assured that the team will eventually pick one of the tickets available for the World Cup.
” Prior to this game, I promised Nigerians that not not minding the result we got last week in South Africa, we’re not going to leave anything to chance and am happy the girls played to instruction.
” Right now, my focus is on our next opponent and am hopeful we’re going to give a good account of ourselves and qualify for the petit World Cup in Morocco”, he assured.
Nigeria will now confront the winner of the fixture between Botswana and Algeria in the final qualification round, set for next month. Botswana won the first leg at home 2-1.