Nigeria U 23 team qualify for Rio Olympics

Nigeria's Olympic team last night qualified for next year’s Rio Olympics after they beat hosts Senegal 1-0 through a penalty by captain Oghenekaro Etebo in the ongoing Africa under 23 championship in Senegal.

Nigeria will clash with Algeria in the final on Saturday after Algeria beat South Africa 2-0 in the other semi final clash last night.

Nigeria’s hero in the match was goalkeeper Emmanuel Daniel, who saved a penalty in first half stoppage to hold hosts Senegal 0-0 after the first period and coach Samson Siasia was quick to praise the Enugu Rangers goalkeeper.

“I’m very happy to win against Senegal again after the Africa Cup of Nations in 1992 and achieving our objective, which was to qualify for the Olympics, ” Siasia said to cafonline.com. “I think the ‘gods of football’ were with my team today because Senegal created most of the chances but they failed to score. Emmanuel Daniel (Goalkeeper) kept us in the match as he made some brilliant saves today. On another day, we could’ve been embarrassed. We did the best we could because we had lots of injuries heading into this match but I hope that Senegal can qualify to Rio so as to have a strong African representation in Brazil. Creating chances and scoring them are different so I’m not concern that we allowed Senegal to have the best chances of the match,” concluded Siasia.