Brazil coach, Carlos Amadeu, has lamented his team’s mistakes in their 3-0 defeat to the Golden Eaglets in their Chile 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup quarterfinal match on Sunday.
The Eaglets, who met the Brazilians for the first time at the U-17 level, made the semi-finals with goals from Victor Osimhen, Kingsley Michael and Udochukwu Anumudu.
Amadeu praised Nigeria forward, Osimhen, for his performance in the game.
“We knew that if we wanted to win, we had to make the most of any chances that we created, especially if we were in control of proceedings at any point,” the former EC Victoria coach told FIFA.com.
“We’d have liked to see how Nigeria would’ve reacted to going behind. But we wasted our opportunities and then they scored three goals in five minutes, so we’ll never know. I haven’t stopped to think whether or not having dominated them so heavily for 15 minutes is a consolation.
“If you look back at the goals, none of them came from us losing our balance. For the opener, the No. 9 (Osimhen) deserves the credit. We knew that he likes to sneak behind his markers at the far post and had prepared for that, but he got on the end of a good cross and produced a fine header.”
Nigeria coach, Emmanuel Amuneke, praised the Eaglets for winning the game.
“You have to give credit to my kids, who kept their cool to deal with pressure and scored at the right time. For them, to beat Brazil is a big confidence boost. We still have a long way to the title, though,” he told FIFA.com.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s win has added to the Eaglets’ record at Chile 2015. Nigeria became the team with most semi-final appearances —eight. They are followed by Brazil with seven appearances.
Also, Osimhen will be aiming to equal the most goals scored at a FIFA U-17 World Cup, a record that has stood for 14 years.
The 16-year-old has scored eight goals and is one shy of France’s Sinama Pongolle’s record of nine goals at the 2001 edition of the tournament in Trinidad and Tobago.
Copyright PUNCH.
No comments:
Post a Comment