When the Nigeria Super Eagles-B team meets Ghana’s Black Galaxies today in the first leg of the final qualifying duel for the 2025 African Nations Championship, it will be the sixth-time head-to-head confrontation of both sides.
In all the previous encounters, the Ghanaian side came out smiling. There is therefore an apparent jinx for the Nigerian side, reports sportsvillagesquare.com
The African Nations Championship (CHAN) is for selected nationals of the domestic leagues of various countries and thus also provides relative strength to each national league.
Nigeria qualified only thrice in the preceding seven editions. The Ghana Black Galaxies have been the most dreaded opposition for the Nigerian sides.
They had met in the 2009 and the 2022 series. The aggregate results were in Ghana’s favour.
First, in the 2009 qualifiers, Nigeria squandered a 2-0 first-half lead in Accra and lost 3-2. But going into the return leg played in Calabar, they could not score a goal that could have seen them through on the away goal rule as they ended the match 0-0.
In the last edition, Nigeria for the 2023 edition, Nigeria lost 2-0 in Accra but levelled up in Abuja after a late 2-0 win. But in the eventual penalty shoot-out, the Nigerian team lost 5-4.
Will they overcome Ghana this time? Ghana’s dominance over Nigeria in CHAN is not limited to the qualifying series. Both teams met in the finals of the 2014 edition in South Africa.
The semi-final duel ended goalless after extra time. But Ghana prevailed 4-1 in the eventual penalty shootout.
