Nigeria’s Flying Eagles wins African champions for the 7th time

Nigeria's U20 team, the Flying Eagles, were crowned champions of the 19th Africa Youth Championships after defeating hosts, Senegal, by a lone goal in a thrilling final match on Sunday night at the 45,000-capacity Leopold Sedar Senghor Stadium.

A beautiful goal from Bernard Bulbwa in the first half was all that was required for Nigeria to lift her 7th AYC trophy.
Nigeria and Senegal had faced each other two weeks earlier in the group opener of the competition AYC with the Flying Eagles emerging as 3-1 winners.

The Flying Eagles had pledged to complete a double but the Senegalese who were making the final for the first time promised to turn the tables against Coach Manu Garba and his boys in the final match.

The Senegal team however, did try to turn things around as they enjoyed the earlier attacking foray in Sunday’s final match with the likes of Ndiaye and El Hadji Niang both attempting to get the ball past Flying Eagles goalkeeper, Joshua Enaholo, who was in good form.

Before this latest win in Senegal, the Flying Eagles’ previous AYC title were in 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 2005 and 2011.

Earlier in the day, Ghana took the third place game defeating Mali 3-1. The four teams that reached the semi-final – Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, and Mali- will represent Africa at the FIFA U20 World Cup.