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IT’S WORLD HEAVY WEIGHT, NIGERIA VS EURO CHAMPS, NETHERLANDS

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In a couple of hours, the Brazil 2019 U17 World Cup rolls into the second round with two intriguing fixtures.

That of Nigeria and Netherlands is easily that of World Heavyweight versus European champions. The Nigerian side, although absent at the 2017 edition, is easily the most successful team in the competition having won on five occasions.

The Nigerian Golden Eaglets are going for a record-extending sixth time. The Eaglets were runaway leaders of Group B, even with a match to spare.

 

The Netherlands on the other hands were European champions, but had to depend on the lottery of being one of the third-placed teams with the best records to qualify to face Nigeria.

The players know that back home, nothing outside a victory at the competition is accepted.

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“We’ll keep working hard to conquer in Brazil because anything less than that won’t be accepted back home.” Peter Olawale told FIFA.com.

 

The Golden Eaglets are known at Brazil 2019 as ‘kings of comebacks’. It is however extremely very dangerous to continue to live on that as their last game with Australia proved last Friday.

The Oranje, meanwhile, found their feet – and goals – just when it seemed that all was lost.

Going into their third and final pool encounter, the Dutch practically had one foot on the plane home, but a 4-0 victory over US, plus some helpful results in other sections, allowed them to qualify for the Round of 16 for the first time since 2005.

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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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