Can the Golden Eaglets beat Mexico again?

TWO CAPTAINS, ONE TROPHY — Captains, Musa Muhammed of Nigeria and Ulises Rivas of Mexico


Many have dubbed today’s match a revenge mission. Others, too, have called it a match to prove one’s superiority over another. Depending on which divide you are, it appears to be the truth.

Defending champions, Mexico have recovered from the pangs of that 6-1 humiliation in the hands of the Golden Eaglets to play in today’s final, beating notable teams like Brazil and Argentina before squaring up against the Nigerian goal-machines.

But one Eaglet who also shot himself into reckoning with the Mexico match is Kelechi Iheanacho who told them that they were nursing a bad dream in their revenge mission today. Iheanacho scored four out of the six goals and today stands tall as one of the contenders for the hotshot award.

“I’m sure they won’t feel great about that first result.They’ll want to put pressure on us and we’ll have to be careful. We’ll respect them, but it’s hard to go against us when we’re playing our good football”, he said.

Football is good at offering second chances, but Iheanacho – near the top of the scorer’s charts with five of Nigeria’s 23 goals – has bad news for the revived Mexicans. “We’ve got better since that opener. We’ve become closer and we’re going to chase them all over the field; we’re going to press them with our attackers and we won’t rest. We’ll go at them for 90 minutes until we’re sure the trophy is ours’’, he said with a note of certainty.

Asked about the army of supporters club led by Dr Rafiu Ladipo who have provided moving songs for them, he shyly smiled and said; “They give us courage,” Iheanacho said of the Nigerian fans who’ve offered the tournament colour and swagger, their trumpets blaring for all of the Eaglets’ matches. But you can’t play for the gallery, you have to play for your team-mates.

But they do give us confidence and they cheer us up so that we can play in the right way,” he went on about the supporters who’ve sparked the venues of this Arab country with flashes of Lagos and Abuja.

“We have to work as a team, play as a team,” he added, knowing fully well he and his mates have offered as harmonious a brand of football as any before at this age level. “This is how you win matches.” It is indeed, and with talents like Musa Yahaya, Taiwo Awoniyi and Abdullahi Alfa alongside Iheanacho, rest may not come easy for Mexico’s defenders starting from 5pm(Nigerian time).