African Games: Nigeria 1-2 Uganda – Isiyaka’s goal not enough, as resilient Hippos shock Bosso’s poor Eagles

The Nigeria Under-20 team, the Flying Eagles, suffered a 2-1 loss to the Hippos of Uganda in their first game of the 2023 African Games at the Accra Sports Stadium, Soccernet.ng reports.

The Flying Eagles were favourites to win because of their quality and supposed understanding from playing together in the past, as some of them played together at the last Under-20 World Cup.

However, it didn’t turn out like that. Nigeria struggled badly, leaving the Ugandans to control the fixture. The Hippos eventually scored the opener in the 34th minute. A long ball was floated into Nigeria’s half from Uganda’s half, but Ibrahim Abdullahi did a poor job of clearing the ball, allowing Kiza Usman to run at the Nigerian defence, and once he entered the box, he just placed a well-taken shot beyond Samuel James, to give the Hippos the lead.

Nigeria woke up after going down, and it was Isiyaka who leveled the scoring three minutes later. He reacted first to a corner from the left of Nigeria’s attack and guided the ball into the net with a nice header to make it 1-1.

The Flying Eagles started the second half well and could have scored early in the half, but Charles Agada failed to capitalize.

But 15 minutes into the second half, Nigeria took their feet off the pedal, allowing Uganda to start controlling the momentum.

The Flying Eagles eventually got punished, as Ivan Irinimbabazi drilled in a wicked shot from over 25 years to give Uganda the lead again in the 81st minute.

Despite going down, the Flying Eagles failed to create sufficient chances in the final embers of the game and had to settle for the 2-1 loss.

Nigeria’s next game is against South Sudan, and coach Bosso would hope that his lads can return to winning ways to stand a chance of advancing to the next round.