AFCON U17: Golden Eaglets, Angola battle for bronze

Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets will battle their Group opponents, Angola, in the third placed match at the ongoing AFCON U17 on Sunday.

The Garba Manu side lost 10-9 via penalties to Guinea, while Angola also surrendered to Cameroon on 4-3 penalties in the second semi final.

Nigeria pipped the Angolans by alone goal in the group tie.

In the semi final, both sides battled to a goalless stalemate in 90 minutes before heading for the shootouts straight, with Ogaga Oduko losing his kick in a penalty session.

Fresh off his goal-scoring showing against Uganda, Ibraheem Jabaar kept his spot in the line-up, with Wisdom Ubani leading the line.

The Guineans dominated the early proceedings and almost made it count through Algassime Bah.

Stephen Sunday fingertip save pushed the rasping effort onto the crossbar.

In the 12th minute, Wisdom Ubani had the first crack at goal for the Golden Eaglets, but saw his effort well wide off the mark.

In a rather uncharacteristic manner, Garba’s side would relent on counters with the Junior Sylis winning the most of the battles and, thus, dictating the tempo of the game.

It was on one of such breakaways that Nigeria came closest to grabbing the curtain raiser. Ubani’s finish, after being released at the right side of the box by Akinkunmi Amoo, beat Sekou Camara but was whiskers off the target.

Amoo, who was subbed off in the last game due to an injury concern, had Olakunle Olusegun came in his stead before half time, forcing Garba into a tactical rejig.

With Eaglets settling into their shell in the second half, Ubani was denied a goal after Sekou Camara closed in on the striker. Fawaz tested the Guinean goal with a long-range effort that was slightly off target.

Again, Bah tried his luck from way out, but could not keep his shot at Nigeria post low enough.

Ubani displayed brilliant holdup play to carve out a chance for himself, but dragged his shot wide off the target before seeing a lovely free-kick deflected to the crossbar.

Nigeria had late chances to win the game but the Guineans held firm to extend the game to penalty shootouts.

After a succession of topnotch penalty kicks, left-back Oduko flashed his effort high to gift Guinea U-17 a spot in the final.