Goalkeeper, ‘gods of soccer’ gave us Olympic ticket—Siasia

NifemiDaniel

U-23 Eagles coach, Samson Siasia, has attributed the team’s success at the African U-23 Championship to the heroic performance of his goalkeeper, Emmanuel Daniel and the ‘gods of soccer’.

Daniel, who made several saves in the match notably the first half penalty kick save, was also instrumental to the team’s victory after stopping the rampaging Senegalese strikers.

Senegal defender Ousseynou Thioune in the 71st minute handled the ball in the box in a bid to stop Nigeria from scoring which earned him a red card and Nigeria a penalty.

Oghenekaro Etebo dispatched the spot kick with aplomb for the only goal of the game and a ticket to the football event of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro

“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. 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,” he told cafonline.com.

Siasia however promised to work on the team’s lapses while praying the Senegalese qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“We did the best we could because we had lots of injuries heading into this match but I hope that Senegal can qualify for Rio so as to have a strong African representation in Brazil.

“Creating chances and scoring them are different, so I’m not concerned that we allowed Senegal to have the best chances of the match,” he said.

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