{"id":71239,"date":"2025-07-22T21:22:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=71239"},"modified":"2025-07-22T21:22:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:22:40","slug":"alozies-late-goal-sends-super-falcons-to-wafcon-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/07\/22\/alozies-late-goal-sends-super-falcons-to-wafcon-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Alozie\u2019s Late Goal Sends Super Falcons to WAFCON Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Njoku Chijioke<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria\u2019s Super Falcons have booked their place in the WAFCON 2024 final with a dramatic 2-1 win over defending champions South Africa in the semi-finals, thanks to a stoppage-time winner from Michelle Alozie.<\/p>\n<p>Rasheedat Ajibade opened scoring for Nigeria in the first half, calmly converting a penalty after a South African defender was penalized for a handball in the box. South Africa responded in the 57th minute when Linda Motlhalo netted a penalty following a foul by Osinachi Ohale.<\/p>\n<p>The match appeared to be heading into extra time until Alozie, in a moment of brilliance, chipped the ball from mid-range past the goalkeeper to seal victory in stoppage time.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria will now face either host nation Morocco or Ghana\u2019s Black Queens in the final on Saturday, July 26.<\/p>\n<p>With this win, the Super Falcons remain unbeaten in the tournament and have not conceded a goal in open play \u2014 a testament to their defensive discipline and overall form.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Justin Madugu praised his squad&#8217;s resilience and preparation. \u201cThe girls showed incredible focus and desire. South Africa are a formidable side, but we broke their streak because we believed in ourselves,\u201d he said, adding that the team\u2019s familiarity with the Casablanca venue was also an advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Njoku Chijioke &nbsp; Nigeria\u2019s Super Falcons have booked their place in the WAFCON 2024 final with a dramatic 2-1 win over defending champions South Africa in the semi-finals, thanks to a stoppage-time winner from Michelle Alozie. Rasheedat Ajibade opened scoring for Nigeria in the first half, calmly converting a penalty after a South African [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71239","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71241,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71239\/revisions\/71241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}