Super Eagles winger, Victor Moses scored twice
SA 2013
Nigeria’s Super Eagles finally discovered their scoring touch Saturday in annihilating Liberia 6-1 to qualify for next year’s Nations Cup finals in South Africa.
The game, played at the UJ Usuene Stadium, Calabar, saw the Eagles dominating right from the start with defender, Efe Ambrose heading home with the game barely 60 seconds old.
The Lone Star were able to repel the Nigerians for the next 37 minutes before Ahmed Musa doubled the scores.
Then the Eagles’ Chelsea contingent got on the act first with Victor Moses in the 48th minute and John Obi Mikel two minutes later.
Moses got his second in the 88th minute not too soon after Ambrose had scored his second in the 72nd minute.
However, the Eagles lowered their guard and allowed Patrick Wleh spoil their clean sheet with a well taken strike in the 80th minute.
Having already drawn the first leg 2-2 in Monrovia Nigeria thus qualified on an 8-3 aggregate and will join such sides like Zambia, Ghana and Mali in the draws later this month.
Meanwhile in some other matches played Saturday, Zambia needed a penalty shootout over Uganda to qualify for a chance to defend their African Nations Cup title in South Africa next January.
Twenty kicks were needed before the continental champions advanced 9-8 on penalties after losing the second leg of their final round qualifier 1-0 to their hosts in Kampala.
Patrick Ochan missed the key kick in the post-match shootout amid an atmosphere of spiralling tension as Uganda threw away an early advantage and again missed out on qualification by the narrowest of margins.
They had been well placed after losing just 1-0 in Ndola in last month's first leg tie and levelled the aggregate score after 27 minutes on Saturday through Geoffrey Massa.
Ghana became the first country to qualify for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations when beating Malawi 1-0 in Lilongwe on Saturday afternoon.
The Black Stars braved the intimidating crowd and bumpy pitch at the Civo Stadium to clinch their ticket with an early goal from debutant Afriyie Acquah.
Ghana thus reach their 19th Africa Cup of Nations after clinching the 3-0 aggregate win following their victory over the Flames in the first-leg in Accra last month.
The visitors hit the ground running on three minutes with a well-worked goal.
And Botswana crumbled under the pressure to make it two year’s running out of the African Cup of Nations when they failed to qualify at the hands of a determined Mali side who took no prisoners in a 4-1 win in Lobatse.
Botswana had the daunting task of having to overturn a three goal deficit inflicted on them in the first leg of the qualifiers in Mali in hope of securing progression.
The first twenty minutes brought little to no action between the two teams, with Mali looking to keep a hold of the well worked aggregate lead.