The Super Eagles of Nigeria have qualified for the semi-final of the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
A first-half goal from Ademola Lookman secured the spot for Nigeria in a 1-0 win over Angola at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan on Friday.<\/p>\n
The performance against Angola was not identical to the complete domination of Cameroon in the quarter-final, but the Super Eagles did what was needed to push themselves closer to the AFCON trophy.<\/p>\n
Jose Peseiro, the Super Eagles head coach, retained his compact 3-4-3 formation with William Troost-Ekong, Semi Ajayi, and Calvin Bassey to shield Stanley Nwabali in goal.<\/p>\n
Ola Aina and Zaidu Sanusi started on the right and left flanks as wing-backs, while Alex Iwobi and Frank Onyeka combo slotted into the midfield.<\/p>\n
Victor Osimhen led the attacking line with Moses Simon and Ademola Lookman on either side of his.<\/p>\n
The biggest news before the match was Nwabali\u2019s fitness. He was injured during the game against Cameroon, and there is concern about him featuring against Angola.<\/p>\n
He passed a late fitness and was called into action a few minutes after the kickoff. Nwabali was alert to stop a close-range tap-in from Mabululu to save Nigeria from an early heartbreak.<\/p>\n
It was all Nigeria from then on, and Osimhen was a perpetual aerial threat, forcing Signori Antonio, the Angolan goalkeeper, to early saves.<\/p>\n
But in the 41st minute, the deadlock was finally broken. Moses Simon beat Gaspart with pace before setting up a clean cutback for Lookman at the edge of the box. The Atalanta striker dispatched the final shot into the roof of the net to send Nigeria ahead.<\/p>\n
The strike was Lookman\u2019s third goal of the tournament.<\/p>\n
In the second half, Osimhen thought he had doubled Nigeria\u2019s lead. He headed home from a Simon Moses cross. But the goal is ruled out for offside after VAR review.<\/p>\n
Nigeria held on to a nervous lone-goal victory and will play the winners of the match between South Africa and Cape Verde in the semi-final.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Super Eagles of Nigeria have qualified for the semi-final of the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Ivory Coast. A first-half goal from Ademola Lookman secured the spot for Nigeria in a 1-0 win over Angola at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan on Friday. The performance against Angola was not identical to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18254,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18251\/revisions\/18254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}