Nigeria beat Mozambique 2-0 to secure second place in Group A and qualify to the quarter-finals of the TotalEnergies U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.
Goals from Samson Lawal and Ibrahim Muhammad secured the points for the Flying Eagles of Ladan Bosso.
Defender Solomon Agbalaka put in another TotalEnergies Man of the Match performance in defence.
“It is expected (MOM award) because he’s somebody that I heard of and I had to leave Abuja to Lagos on two occasions to watch him play for his team,” Bosso said.
“I booked him down then I went to Ikeja for a scouting programme. I saw him play from the centre back so I had to sit him down. We talked so I decided to shift him to left full-back.
“I believe somebody can play from left back and centre back so he’s a good addition to the team so I saw him and followed up and I invited him to the camp.”
The Flying Eagles boss has one target which is to reach the semi-finals of the tournament to book a place in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia.
“We came to Egypt with the mindset of picking one of the tickets to the FIFA U-20 World Cup and the victory against Mozambique is something that we planned,” Bosso said.
“We worked for it. We have seen them play about two matches in Cairo.
“We tried to rush them and we did just that and got our two goals in the first half. The second half we introduced other players preparing them for the next stage.”
–CAF