Nigeria’s Peace Effiong has said that she wants to make her late mother proud by helping the Flamingos win the ongoing 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in the Dominican Republic.

Effiong speaking on Thursday in an interview with the official website of FIFA said her mother supported her all the way to becoming a professional footballer.

The attacker also opened up to FIFA’s World Stars in the Making on the hardships she went through before receiving her dream national team call-up.

When she scored the third goal in Nigeria’s scintillating 4-0 win against Ecuador, Effiong was swept away by a wave of sheer joy as she celebrated her first World Cup goal in a state of pure euphoria but she said she still felt a bit of sadness.

The Super Flamingos striker lives these moments of joy to the fullest because she has recently been going through much tougher times, especially due to the death of her mother.

“I lost my mother last year”, Peace emotionally revealed in an in-depth interview with FIFA.

“My mother has always been my only motivation, she always supported me and she always pushed me to never give up. Whatever happens in my career, it’s because of her. Unfortunately, I lost her before joining the U-17s for the first time for the qualification stage.”

The 14-year-old told FIFA that this terrible ordeal had a profound effect on her but the second youngest player in coach Bankole Olowookere’s squad said she is more courageous because the grief she was faced with is now her greatest strength.

She also made it very clear that she wouldn’t have got to this level as a professional footballer without her late mother.

“She was the one who bought me my first kit, it could only have come from her”, recalled Peace.

“My father was more the sort of person to say to me: ‘Peace, you get home from school and the first thing that you want to do is play football…’ And my mother would always reply: ‘Leave her be, let her get on with it.’

“I’m not quite sure how to put it into words. When I lost her, it affected me a lot, and a month later, I got the call-up. Before that, it was her who cheered me up when things weren’t going well, but I told myself that I had to keep praying and believing in myself as much as I could.”

Her mother was utterly devoted to her daughter becoming a footballer one day, even if it meant making some sacrifices. “At times, I didn’t have enough money to go to training, but she always told me not to worry about it.

“The little that she had, she gave to me. Sometimes, she went without eating, simply so I could go to training or to buy me some equipment.”

When Effiong returns to the pitch in Santiago de los Caballeros for Saturday’s quarter-final against USA, she said she will once more spare a special thought for her mother.

“I want to make my mother proud in this tournament. I want to make sure that we win the whole thing so that she would be proud of me, wherever she is,” she concluded.