Super Eagles and Al-Kholood defender, William Troost-Ekong, has given credit to Gernot Rohr's Benin Republic for the display they put up against Nigeria last night, Soccernet.ng reports.
Augustine Eguavoen's men needed a point at the Stade Félix Houphouet-Boigny in Ivory Coast to seal qualification to the AFCON 2025 tournament in Morocco, but it was the home side that drew first blood.
A well-worked set piece saw Mohammed Tijani break the deadlock in the 16th minute, before Victor Osimhen responded with a header to level the scores with nine minutes left on the clock.
Speaking after the game, Ekong praised Benin for putting up a worthy fight and expressed his delight at Nigeria's resilience.
“I want to congratulate our coach, our team for qualifying for the AFCON. That was our objective four to five months ago when we started this campaign.
Our idea was always to try and win this game, we don't want to put on a showing that is not worthy of Nigeria, so, today, we obviously have to give credit to Benin.
They had a good game plan. I thought we were a little bit unlucky in the moment they scored because we were missing a man off the pitch on the other side in Victor Osimhen and that's when they scored the set-piece.
Credit to them, we know they're a good threat from that, and we know they tried to win the game, but like the coach said, 1-1 was a fair result and we're very happy to qualify and remain unbeaten in this campaign,” the former Watford man told NFF Media after the game.
Nigeria will play their final group game against Rwanda at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, Uyo, on Monday.
