Ahmed Musa on Saturday scored the opening goal in Nigeria’s 3-0 win over Seychelles in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifying series.
The Super Eagles who lost their opening match of the qualifiers against South Africa 15 months ago, needed an outright victory to bounce back in their quest for the AFCON 2019 ticket.
Gernot Rohr’s side started well against Seychelles and they did not have to wait for too long as Ahmed Musa justified the captain’s armband handed to him when he gave the Super Eagles the lead in the 15th minute.
Musa fired in a splendid cross from just outside Seychelles’ box that hit the crossbar and bounced off the towering keeper’s back into the net.
The Eagles were keen at increasing the lead fast and Kelechi Iheanacho almost did that but his effort also just outside the box was off target.
The second goal did come for Nigeria and Iheanacho had a hand in it as he played a well-placed free kick that was parried by the keeper but was calmly tucked in by defender Chidozie Awaziem in the 34th.
The Super Eagles took a 2-0 lead to the break and when they came for the second half, they added one more.
Samuel Kalu one of the debutants for Nigeria in Saturday’s game won a penalty kick for his team 12 minutes after the restart and Odion Ighalo converted the resultant kick to make it 3-0 for Nigeria.
Nigeria will be playing a friendly against Liberia on Tuesday after the initial friendly against Saudi Arabia was canceled.
This article was most recently revised and updated 4 years ago
