Gambia 0-1 Nigeria
Jan 31,2007 00:00
by
Anna
The Gambia U-20 team last night lost 0-1 to the Flying Eagles of Nigeria in the semi-final of the ongoing African Youth Championship finals held in Congo Brazzaville. Nigeria’s Uwa Echiejile scored the only goal of the game with a low free kick that beat goalkeeper Joseph Gomez in the 19th minute. Both sides had men sent off with straight red cards by the Ghananian referee, Kotey Alex during last night’s keenly contested match played in Brazzaville. The Darling Scorpions, who had won all their group games at the tournament, responded to Nigeria’s lead, with Ousman Jallow hitting the crossbar close-range in the 30th minute after some neat passing on the right. However things became difficult for the Darling Scorpions after the 38th minute when defender Alagie Amadou Ngum was shown a straight red card after a Nigerian player, Bala Ezekiel, went down in the box claiming he was elbowed.
In the second half, the defending champions and three-time winners, Nigeria, were also reduced to 10 men as their goal scorer, Echiejile was sent off for a terrible challenge on the prolific Pa Landing Conateh.
Speaking to Observer Sports shortly after the game, Peter Bonu Johnson, the head coach of the Gambian team said: ¨It was a good game. Both sides played well. Nigeria had their golden chance and made good use of it and we had ours but failed to utilise it, but so is football". Bonu said he was very pleased with the out come of yesterday’s game due to the fact that his team proved their worth. "I am very happy with the boys. Now we will just go back and prepare for the third place and the Canada championship", he said.
For his part, Uwua Godwin Koko, the Eaglets head coach admitted that The Gambia is a better side. ¨The Gambia is a good side and we knew this. That is why we curtailed them so that we matched them strenght by strenght", he said.
In the Saturday’s final, Nigeria will play either the hosts Congo or Zambia who were locking horns in another semi-final game in Pointe Noire last night. The Gambia will take on the loser of that game in the third place play-off on Thursday, February 1.