Nigeria Saturday beat Benin 2-0 in a qualifying match for next year’s African Under-17 football tournament. In the match played in Nigeria’s main oil city of Port Harcourt, Lawal Adamu Hassan scored first in the sixth minute, followed by Adam Linus, who converted a penalty after Adamu Hassan was fouled by Benin goalkeeper Karimu in the 56th minute. Not too impressed with his boys’ performance, Nigeria’s U-17 team coach Alphonsus Dike promised to rebuild the team to enable it achieve better results in future engagements. ”I am happy that we won. The next issue is how did we win. We were able to score goals but I am not really impressed that we missed a lot of scoring chances. My boys were a little bit careless in front of the goal mouth and that’s why they could not convert chances that came their way,” he said. The coach of Benin U-17 team, Ekue Moise, said his new team was unfortunate to be matched with Nigeria, which has a more experienced team.
