Abdu Maikaba, a former assistant coach in Nigeria’s youth national team, has sent out a passionate prayer for the Flying Eagles to defeat Senegal on Monday in order to pick a qualification ticket for the FIFA U20 World Cup.
Sports247 reports that Nigeria and Senegal will clash at Suez Canal Stadium in the Egyptian city of Ismaili, starting at 1 pm Nigeria time, with the winner not only moving into this year’s Africa U20 Cup of Nations semi-finals but also qualifying for the Youth Mundial in Chile.
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However, with Senegal entering the game as defending champions and holding a better head-to-head advantage over Nigeria in recent youth national team matches, everyone is apprehensive of a very likely negative outcome for the Flying Eagles.
This has informed the recourse to fervent prayers by Maikaba, who is currently the head coach at Wiki Tourist of Bauchi, but recalls his days in the national camp and admitted that defeat on Monday will be a huge setback for Nigeria.
“The World Cup ticket is the most important thing,” said Maikaba. “Anything we do, if we don’t qualify for the World Cup, it would be as if we don’t know anything and we haven’t done anything.
“I believe they know what is at stake. So, I pray for this team to be among the four teams that will reach the semi-finals; and that would qualify them for the World Cup in Chile.”
Checks by Sports247 reveal that Senegal won the last three confrontations between these two teams, the last of which was a 2-0 spanking of the Flying Eagles at the U20 AFCON semi-finals in 2023.
The Junior Teranga Lions had also earlier beaten the Flying Eagles 1-0 during the 2018 WAFU B qualifiers in Lome, Togo and then gained a 2-1 cruise over the same squad in the second round of the 2019 FIFA U20 World Cup in Poland.
