Flying Eagles of Nigeria will be playing their quarter-finals of the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt on Thursday against Uganda to determine the next World Cup ticket.
The match will be held at Suez Canal Stadium in Ismailia, Egypt today at 18h00 local time (17h00 CAT).
Nigeria completed second in Group A behind Senegal and will be going into Thursday’s match with a lot of confidence and determination following their back-to-back win in the group stage.
Flying Eagles who have the record of winning AFCON U-20 seven times are back in the quarter-finals of the tournament after failing to make the last edition in Mauritania.
Flying Eagles’ Coach, Ladan Bosso stated, “We all know that Nigeria has qualified to the quarter-final stage and knowing fully that we have an objective of coming out of this place and the least task ahead of us is to pick one of the slots to the FIFA U-20 World Cup.”
“We’re almost there but it is not yet sealed. We believe and hope that at the end of the regulation time tomorrow we should be celebrating.”
Boss pointed out that the Flying Eagles will not underrate the Hippos who reached the final on their debut two years ago.
He said, “The Ugandan team is equally qualified and they’re our next opponents and we cannot underrate any team.
“The knockout stage if you don’t squeeze through it’s as if you didn’t qualify so we will do all we can do to make sure we go through to the World Cup.
“We have our strategy and we hope our plan will work accordingly,” he added.
Nigeria lost only one game in the group stages to Senegal in their first game but bounced back into the competition with their 1-0 winnings against Egypt and 2-0 win against Mozambique.
Goalkeeper Chijioke Aniagboso was there with the Flying Eagles boss at the pre-match press conference for the big clash on Thursday.
In Chijioke’s statement, he said, “We will continue from where we stopped improving our game but we’re happy to get to this stage.”
“We need to work so much harder than how we started to like my coach said losing this match is like not even qualifying at all so I think we’re prepared with the coaches and by god grace, we will go through.
“We are in a confident mood because we started this and we have to end it. There’s no feeling or anything. Our job is to go to the field and up our game and book our ticket.
