Under 17 final match Nigeria vs Mexico.
Many
have dubbed today’s match a revenge mission. Others, too, have called it a
match to prove one’s superiority over another. Depending on which divide you
are, it appears to be the truth.
Defending
champions, Mexico have recovered from the pangs of that 6-1 humiliation in the
hands of the Golden Eaglets to play in today’s final, beating notable teams
like Brazil and Argentina before squaring up against the Nigerian
goal-machines.
But
one Eaglet who also shot himself into reckoning with the Mexico match is
Kelechi Iheanacho who told them that they were nursing a bad dream in their
revenge mission today. Iheanacho scored four out of the six goals and today
stands tall as one of the contenders for the hotshot award.
“I’m
sure they won’t feel great about that first result.They’ll want to put pressure
on us and we’ll have to be careful. We’ll respect them, but it’s hard to go
against us when we’re playing our good football”, he said.
Football
is good at offering second chances, but Iheanacho – near the top of the
scorer’s charts with five of Nigeria’s 23 goals – has bad news for the revived
Mexicans. “We’ve got better since that opener. We’ve become closer and we’re
going to chase them all over the field; we’re going to press them with our
attackers and we won’t rest. We’ll go at them for 90 minutes until we’re sure
the trophy is ours’’, he said with a note of certainty.
Asked
about the army of supporters club led by Dr Rafiu Ladipo who have provided
moving songs for them, he shyly smiled and said; “They give us courage,”
Iheanacho said of the Nigerian fans who’ve offered the tournament colour and
swagger, their trumpets blaring for all of the Eaglets’ matches. But you can’t
play for the gallery, you have to play for your team-mates.
But
they do give us confidence and they cheer us up so that we can play in the
right way,” he went on about the supporters who’ve sparked the venues of this
Arab country with flashes of Lagos and Abuja.
“We
have to work as a team, play as a team,” he added, knowing fully well he and
his mates have offered as harmonious a brand of football as any before at this
age level. “This is how you win matches.” It is indeed, and with talents like
Musa Yahaya, Taiwo Awoniyi and Abdullahi Alfa alongside Iheanacho, rest may not
come easy for Mexico’s defenders starting from 5pm(Nigerian time).
Make your predictions here........
Source: Vanguard
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