by SundiataPOST, Abuja
Nigeria’s Under -20 women football team, the Falconets, trounced their Sierra Leone counterparts by 10 to nil on Saturday.
The match was the first leg of the FIFA U-20 women’s world cup Canada 2014 qualifiers played at the Abuja National Stadium.
The match, watched by a capacity crowd, saw the Falconets open scoring in the 10th minute by Halimat Ayinde. Chidinma Edeji made it 2-0 thereafter in what looked like a one sided game.
Ayinde scored again at the 25th minute, while the Rivers Angels’ forward, Uchechi Sunday who came in as a substitute for injured Yetunde Adeboyejo, made an immediate impact with a brace at the 35th minute.
Sunday scored the fifth goal just a minute later at the 37th minute from a penalty spot after Winifred Eyebhiora was brought down while goal bound.
The first half ended five goals to nothing.
The second half started strongly with the Falconets taking control of the game with Sunday scoring the sixth goal in the 55th minute and seventh goals for the team five minutes later.
Edeji made it eight goals at the 62nd minute with Patience Okaeme scoring the ninth goal in the 80th minute from a corner while Sunday finished it off on the dot of 90 minutes regulation time.
The girls from Sierra Leone now have an uphill task in the second leg if they ever hope to get to the next round of the qualifiers.
The Falconets’ Head Coach, Peter Dedevbo, said he never expected that the girls would score such high number of goals after their unimpressive performance in their international friendlies.
He said there were still many lapses to work on and that he was not afraid of the second leg in Sierra Leone.
According to him, not all those playing in the qualifiers will feature at the world cup, adding that some new players will join the team from the U-17 team.
The Sierra Leone Coach, Abdulai Bah, said he was not surprised at all that the Nigeria team beat his girls.
He said it was the first time the team was participating in an international competition, stressing that they were just building up a new team.
Bah said he was only exposing his players to gain experience for now, assuring that no country will be able to beat them again four years from now.
