The excitements, upsets and drama of the FIFA U-17 World Cup Chile 2015 comes to a resounding conclusion as two African power giants lock horn at the Vina Del Mar stadium on Sunday.
Defending champions, Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets reached their second consecutive final thanks to a thrilling 4-2 victory against Mexico to set up an all-African final against continental champions Mali.
Mali overcame Belgium in the semi-finals to advance to the final. In their fourth appearance at this level, the Malians have achieved a feat that no other Malian national side at any FIFA tournament.
They were made to work hard to get to the final, as the Belgians went toe-to-toe with them for large portions of the match.
The Golden Eaglets, meanwhile, booked themselves a place in the final for an astonishing eighth time in 11 attempts. Emmanuel Amuneke’s boys were tested to the limit by an entertaining Mexico team, and in the process both sides produced the game of the tournament to date.
The clash had just about everything, including tit-for-tat scoring, six goals, three of which had fans leaping off their seats, and intense emotions until the very last kick of the ball.
One big error noted in the semi finals game against Mexico, was Eaglets poor defending; allowing them concede cheap goals.
The same defense lapses have been a major occurrence since the start of the tournament, prompting an urgent measure to been taken in order to restore sanity in the backline.
No doubt, the boys can bang goals, defending the goals has been a major worry for Emmanuel Amuneke’s side.
An urgent work in the defence must be done before the final cracker against African champions, Mali on Sunday night.
Funso Bamgboye will back in final after missing out in the semi-fanal, his inclusion will definitely add stability in the midfield and cover up in the defense.
Again, coach Amuneke needs to caution the leftback and the rightback to avoid too much overlap so as not to expose the back four.
The Mali side are very compact and rugged; they play complete football and defend very well.
The Malians will want to make a statement at this stage to tell the world why they are African champion and potential World champion.
A very tough encounter to expect in the final; Eaglets will be looking forward to defend the title they won two years ago and be the first team to win the trophy back to back.
The Eaglets got a boost as the NFF President Amaju Pinnick, has charged Emmanuel Amunike and his lads to go for the trophy against Mali on Sunday.
“The most important match is against Mali on Sunday. This is a life -time opportunity for you to write your names in gold and you know how appreciative our country can be to winners and heroes. Sunday is the day to write your names into the history books,” Pinnick said.
In his post match comments, coach Amuneke, stated that African U-17 champions, Mali would be a tough nut to crack but promise to bring the trophy back to Nigeria.
“The Malians are the African champions, and we have to respect them. Aside that, they have had a great tournament here in Chile, but we are a team that finds a way to play and function no matter the difficulty posed by the opposition.”
The 1994 African Footballer of the Year further added: “When Sunday comes, we are going to play Mali and I think it is going to be an interesting match but we want to enjoy this moment because this was a great match
against a very strong Mexican team .We thank God, we are going to play the final again on Sunday and this gives us the opportunity to defend the trophy we won in 2013.”
Nigeria prolific striker Victor Osimhen would be hoping to set a new world record haven equaled the nine goals scored in the FIFA U-17 World Cup competitions. Osimhen is on the threshold of history to break the record of most goals at the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
For Nigeria to clinch the fifth World Cup title, the Golden Eaglets must step up their game and prove why they are the defending champions.
Also, the defense must be properly coordinated and tactically compact; the defensive midfielders need to do a thorough marking and the strikers must be very clinical in goal.
With hard work and element of Luck, the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria should come out victorious on the night.
Up Golden Eaglets! Up Nigeria!!
Anthony Nlebem
