U-17 World Cup: Nigeria’s comeback kings set for Netherlands challenge in round 16

Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets, winners of Group B at the ongoing Fifa U-17 World Cup, will face the Netherlands, who advanced as one of the third-placed teams with the best records.

Nigeria won their first two group stage games with impressive comeback performances but lost to Australia in their last group game.

Nigeria will, however, be seeking to return to their winning ways at the same stadium – Estadio Olimpico, Goiania – where they won their first two games against Hungary and Ecuador.

“We intend to correct all the errors in the last group game. The round of 16 is a winner takes all and hopefully, the errors noticed in the previous games will not be seen against the Netherlands.” coach Manu Garba told www.thenff.com in Goiania.

The Netherlands only won one match so far in the competition. The Netherlands lost to Japan 3-0 and fell to Senegal 3-1, but hope came alive in their last group game with a 4-0 bashing of United States to qualify for the round of 16 as one of the third-placed teams in the tournament.

Both teams have conceded the same number of goals, conceding six goals each in the tournament so far.

This signals a big worry for the two teams to deal with in the knockout stage. But the Golden Eaglets appears to be more clinical with eight goals to Netherlands’ five goals scored to reach the Round of 16 stage of the Brazil 2019 FIFA U 17 tournament.

While Netherlands parades some exciting football talents in the tournament and they showed this against the United States, the Nigerian youngsters have history in their favour and have been tagged the comeback kings with their resilient spirit showcased in the first two games.

The winners of this tricky Round of 16 tie will then be up against either Argentina or Paraguay in the quarterfinal.