OneFootball
Emily Wilson·16 November 2023
OneFootball
Emily Wilson·16 November 2023
Nigeria kicked off their World Cup qualifying campaign on Thursday but not the way they would have wanted to.
The 40th-ranked Super Eagles welcomed 153rd Lesotho to town, but the points were shared in what will go down as a shock draw in front of home fans.
The visitors opened the scoring after a leaping header from Motlomelo Mkhwanazi saw the entire substitutes bench rush the pitch in celebration.
Semi Ajayi later equalised but the African giants couldn’t find a way to win it despite a plethora of players from the big leagues available.
Eight of Lesotho’s starting 11 play their football in their home country which has a population of only 2.3 million compared to Nigeria’s population of 213.4 million.
After the game, manager Leslie Nots shared that the key was to “not give them [Nigeria] respect.”
“The [approach] was not to go out and waste time, but the self-belief should be there and [we] should express ourselves … we saw areas where we said ‘this is where we can capitalise’ … there’s a lot we have earned from this match so we have to cherish that.”
Forever a result to remember!
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