By Victor Kanayo
Nigeria’s Falconets on Monday morning (West African time) submitted to the superiority of The Netherlands and lost in the quarter-final of the ongoing FIFA U20 Women World Cup played at Alajuela Costa Rica.
The Nigerian girls fell and lost completely in the first half conceding the goals.
Zeta Hulswit scored 11 minutes into the game but the second goal was more painful as Nigeria’s central defender failed to clear her lines diligently gifting the ball to Ziva Henry who played a grass cutter shot that beat Nigeria silly in the 33rd minute.
Midfielder, Esther Onyenezide, who was standing second highest goal scorer of the tournament with three goals was lost on the field of play where Nigeria on an important night to recover for the nation’s loss of Anthony Joshua in Boxing and Usman Kamaru in Kick-boxing frittered away glaring chances.
Imma Gabarro of Spain is still the highest scorer with five goals.
Ref Marianela Aroya of Costa Rica even gave Nigeria more chances blowing the match off at 90+9 minutes.
Samantha Van Dien was out of the game with a red card and football pundits thought that was advantage Nigeria though it was taken that Liz Rijsbergen and Merit Auee who have two goals each will wreck Nigeria in 10 minutes.
Unbelievable, Nigeria had 11 shots on target to Netherlands 2 but the two snapped opportunities sank the Coach Chris Danjuma-led team and broke the heart of thousands of Nigeria’s soccer crazy fans who were waiting for a victory, having been runners-up twice in the competition.
Losing 10 corner kicks to three while their opponents bagged the only three yellow cards of the game suggests that the Falconets handlers were on snooze mode.
Nigeria made 100% coasting to the quarters winning all their matches in group C with a spectacular come back from one goal down to claim the leadership after 3-1 over Canada.
Netherlands won two matches and lost one in group D to emerge second in the group.
And so, the Dutch babes would meet Spain in the semifinals on Thursday at 2330 hours while the Falconets according to tournament rules are expected to leave their host country 48 hours after loss of their match.
Spain had dismissed Mexico 1-0.
Brazil that defeated Columbia 1-0 is waiting for the winner of the Japan versus France match which will be decided later on Monday.
