Sports

Morocco 2023: Guinea block Olympic Eagles from U23 AFCON finals

Published

2 years ago

March 28, 2023

Joel Ajayi
Nigeria’s Olympic Eagles have come short of making it to this year’s U23 Africa Cup of Nations after losing 2-0 to Guinea in the second leg of their final qualifying fixture in Rabat, Morocco on Tuesday.

After a 0-0 draw in the first leg in Abuja on Wednesday last week, the Eagles had the opportunity of more training sessions together to take the game to the Guineans on neutral ground, as Guinea does not have a venue approved in their country for international football.

Both teams fought hard on the turf of the Prince Heritier Moulay Al Hassan for one hour, before Guinea took the lead, and then added a second 15 minutes later to the consternation of the Nigeria squad and their head coach Salisu Yusuf.

Defeat was a bitter pill to swallow, for a team that emerged champions of the Africa U23 Cup of Nations in Senegal in 2015 and reached the finals staged in Egypt four years ago.

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Sports

Mahanaim FC too good for Green Lock in first match of the year

Published

2 days ago

February 2, 2025

The Gleamer

Mahanaim FC kicked-off year 2025 with a victory over Greenlock FC on Saturday, at the Bwari Township Stadium. Goals from Aliyu Imran and Nambou Roman were enough to secure victory for the boys in our first match of the year.

Both teams hadn’t met since 2023 when we cruised to a 2-nil win over them. That result set the tone for our match on Saturday, with our opponents hoping to get one over us this time.

Our Coaches, Saheed Jimoh and Jackson Mbuk had set up a line up which had a blend of young players and the experienced ones, including Haruna Abdullahi, who also got a goal the last time we played GreenLock.

After the opening exchange in first few minutes, Haruna bursted through the middle into the opponents 18-yards, Dribbling his way past three players before setting up Aliyu Imran who finished the move with a goal from close range. The game became very close from that point onwards with only the goal separating the teams.

After the break, the match became more open as we pushed forward searching for the second goal. GreenLock FC came close a couple of times before finding an equaliser through a low free- kick from Samuel Daniel, that went past our Goal-Keeper, David Adolphus.

Barely two minutes after the equaliser, Haruna Abdullahi once again conjured a magical pass that found Nambou Roman who had replaced Aliyu Imran in the attack. Roman’s well timed run was complemented by Haruna’s defence spliting pass. Roman lobbed the ball over the on-rushing goalkeeper into the net, to restore our lead.

GreenLock FC fought fiercely to find an equaliser but our defence line which had Nura Yahaya, Jesse Mokele, Salisu Hamisu and Marcus Haruna stood firm with the help of the midfielders, Daniel Egwuatu and Ikoh Danjuma, as we gained another victory over GreenLock FC in our first match of 2025.

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