By Victor Kanayo
Nigeria’s U23 men team, also known as Olympic Eagles on Tuesday night succumb to a 0-2 defeat in the hands of their Guinean counterpart in the 2023 U23 Africa Cup of Nations second leg of their final qualifying fixture in Rabat, Morocco.
With this shambolic result, culminating to woes of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in recent times, Africa’s most populous nation will miss the 2023 U23 AFCON.
It also means Nigeria have crashed all hopes of making it to 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
By this, it also signifies that Nigeria will not participate in the Olympics in second consecutive editions.
TheOlympics, World biggest sporting event takes place every four years.
The 2020 edition held in Tokyo, Japan in 2021.
How Guinea worsened Nigeria’s football debacle
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.
