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LINGUISTIC LINES AS CAF U20 HITS FINAL STAGE

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The final matches of the 2019 Africa U20 Nations Cup have inadvertently taken a linguistic colouration.  Two Anglophone countries, Nigeria and South Africa play the losers’ final match which Francophone Senegal take on their Malian counterparts.

Co-incidentally, both matches slated for Saturday are repeat fixtures of earlier ones in the group stage.

For the final, Senegal had earlier won 2-0 when they faced Mali in Group B while Nigeria and South Africa played goalless in MatchDay 2 of Group A.

Senegal and Mali at the group stage

For Nigeria and South Africa, it is a continuation of a building up football rivalry. Since October, both countries had met at different levels of continental championships.

Saturday’s clash will be the sixth-football related clash of both countries since November 2018 when their national teams met in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Since, their women’s national teams met twice mid November and early December, Lobi Stars and Mamelodi Sundowns met at CAF Champions’ League before the Flying Eagles and Amajita played a goalless draw some days back.

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Now the two sides will aim to finish on a high after losing their semifinal matches to Mali and Senegal respectively.

The Flying Eagles bowed out on penalties following 1-1 stalemate after extra time against Mali who will take on Senegal in Sunday’s final at the Stade General Seyni Kountche.

Amajita lost to Senegal 1-0 courtesy of Givemore Khupe’s own goal twenty minutes from time securing Les Lionceaux a place in the final against Mali.


Amajita’s coach Thabo Senong is at his third successive Africa U-20 Cup of Nations tournament.


He failed to go past the group stages in Senegal four years ago then finishing fourth in the last edition in 2017 in Zambia and qualifying for the World Cup in South Korea.

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Nigeria is the most successful team in the tournaments history with seven titles but failed to defend the title they won in 2015 in Senegal when they didn’t qualify for Zambia.

“Playing against Nigeria is another opportunity for us to face opponents of another caliber by putting this on the account of our preparation for the world. We will do our best since we play every game to win.” Senong told journalists.


Nigeria have kept three clean sheets in the tournament whiles South Africa has two and just two goals in their four matches.


The Flying Eagles failed to score just once in the tournament which was the goalless draw against the Amajita who have been very organize in defense.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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