{"id":13519,"date":"2018-11-17T16:01:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13519"},"modified":"2018-11-17T16:01:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T16:01:05","slug":"nigeria-qualify-for-2019-africa-cup-of-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13519","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Qualify For 2019 Africa Cup Of Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Super Eagles of Nigeria have qualified for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).<br \/>\nNigeria qualified for the tournament on Saturday after holding the Bafana Bafana of South Africa to a 1-1 draw.<br \/>\nThe tough contest took place at the at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg.<br \/>\nThe Eagles grabbed the lead 10 minutes after kick-off when South Africa\u2019s Buhle Mkhwanazi scored an own goal.<br \/>\nLebo Mothiba, however, levelled the score for Bafana Bafana after 16 minutes.<br \/>\nNigeria later tried to get the lead once again with Captain Ahmed Musa\u2019s attempt, but the referee disallowed the goal.<br \/>\nAfter the restart, the Eagles made another attempt and it was also disallowed by the referee.<br \/>\nAt the end of the match, Nigeria top Group E with 10 points.<br \/>\nThe victory earned them an automatic ticket for next year\u2019s tournament scheduled to take place between June and July in Cameroon.<br \/>\nAhead of Saturday\u2019s match,\u00a0Captain Musa and 21 other players took part in the training held on Tuesday at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba, the Delta State capital.<br \/>\nThose at training included goalkeepers Daniel Akpeyi, Theophilus Afelokhai and Ikechukwu Ezenwa, as well as defenders Olaoluwa Aina, Adeleye Aniyikaye, Semi Ajayi, Bryan Idowu, William Ekong, Leon Balogun, Kenneth Omeruo, and Jamilu Collins.<br \/>\nThe midfielders were Oghenekaro Etebo, John Ogu, and Mikel Agu, while the forwards are Kelechi Iheanacho, Moses Simon, Victor Osimhen, Henry Onyekuru, Alex Iwobi, Isaac Success, and Samuel Chukwueze.<br \/>\nFrance\u2013based forward Samuel Kalu later joined the squad\u00a0the following day.<br \/>\nOn Wednesday, Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa,\u00a0visited the Eagles during training to\u00a0encourage the\u00a0players.<br \/>\nThe governor had promised to reward the players with the sum of $25,000 for every goal scored in the qualifying match against South Africa.<br \/>\nIn his response, President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Pinnick Amaju,\u00a0thanked the governor for making the stadium available for the players to train.<br \/>\nHe had also described the team as the \u201cmost disciplined, young and promising who are in the home of sports, Delta State.\u201d<br \/>\nBy <strong>Channels Television<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Super Eagles of Nigeria have qualified for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). Nigeria qualified for the tournament on Saturday after holding the Bafana Bafana of South Africa to a 1-1 draw. The tough contest took place at the at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg. The Eagles grabbed the lead 10 minutes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5778],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}