By

Eniola Olatunji . 

Nigeria on Sunday evening lost the Maiden WAFU U17 Gold medal to the Black Maidens of Ghana by whiskers via 5-4 penalty shootout at the Ghanian Centre of Excellence in Prampram on the outskirts of Accra..

The Ghanaian girls were determined to whip the Flamingoes of Nigeria silly in a revenge move of their local men’s team who were held to a barren draw in a CHAN match earlier and so sored two fantastic goals against the Flamingos in the first half. 

Getrude Amoafo had scored in the 14th minute and dribbling wizard, Priscilla Mensah scored the second goal in the 19th minute. 

The Flamingos struggled to win the match out rightly in the second half but Chidi Harmony lost two glaring chances.

Precious Oscar paced beautifully to score Nigeria’s first goal in the 34th minute before Chidi Harmony struck in the equalizer that transposed the match into straight penalty shootouts from a long range missile of a shot.

It was Nigeria’s defender Taiwo Adegoke 3rd of five penalty shot that hit the horizontal bar that gave the Ghanaians the maiden trophy.

But Chidi Harmony was announced as Most Valuable Player of the final match and Nigeria’s Goalkeeper, Christiana Uzoma was named The Tournament Best Goalkeeper. 

Benin finished 3rd in the tournament beating Ivory Coast in another penalty shootout. 

Nigeria had beaten Benin Republic 2-0 and Ghana trounced Ivory Coast 5-0 in the semifinal.

The former Black Starlets of Ghana and the Flamingos of Nigeria U17 Girls played 5 games between them since 2013 with Ghana winning once, Nigeria won twice and there were two draws. Ghana had 7 goals and Nigeria had 12 goals. They met four times at CAF U17 level and once in a friendly match.

Incidentally Ghana U17 team played her first International match against Nigeria in Accra on 10th August 1986 which ended 1-1. Ghana’s biggest loss was to Nigeria in a CAF match played on 14th April 2013 at Marrakech, Morocco which was a 6-1 humiliation from Nigeria.

Ghana beat Nigeria 2-0 on 17th April 2017 in a friendly; played 1-1 with Nigeria in a CAF match of 15th September 2018; played another 1-1 0n 9th January 2021 and lost 2-4 to Nigeria on 11th June 2022 in a CAF match.