Nigeria (Flamingos) Vs Guinea (6:0): Retrospective Reflection

The Flamingos flew ferociously into the final round of U-17 Women's World Cup qualifiers this weekend with their feathers unruffled after returning a 6:0 home win against Guinea to record an 11:0 aggregate scoreline.

Talk about a statement of intent, this was a declaration of brutality.

The team played with a very high level of understanding, with that sort of selflessness you seldom see in Nigeria teams. Rather than go for goal themselves, some players elected to pass, placing in on a plate for their colleagues to score, which accounts for the very high scoreline.

The girls controlled the ball well on grass and played like seasoned professionals. It was crosses and cut-backs galore out there as the Flamingos made good use of width afforded them by the 4-3-3 formation their coach deployed to rain down crosses into key areas.

Their movements were quite fluid and they didn't dwell too much on the ball, releasing it swiftly and effectively. After scoring 6 goals they somewhat indulged themselves with some meaningless extravagant long range shots which rightly missed the mark but the girls could be forgiven for their indulgence at that stage.

The goals were nice actually.

Harmony in the middle to Joseph down the right, Joseph plays a diagonal inside the 18 yard box to an unmarked Adegbuyi on the left wing who made it 1:0 in 9 minutes.

Harmony riffles from distant to crash home for 2:0 in 21 minutes after excellently exchanging a 1-2 pass with her colleague.

Adegbuyi's sublime cross was met by Joseph's no-nonsense header to make it 3:0 in 23 minutes.

Adegbuyi would flaunt her own heading credentials with a powerful header off a corner kick to make it 4:0 in 32 minutes.

Adegbuyi was all over the place, this time, recieving a long pass from deep before making light work of her mark with fanciful footwork to then cross low for Harmony to stab into an empty net for 5:0 in 34 minutes - Adegbuyi had every right to go for goal herself but that selflessness I spoke about earlier was illustrated here.

Oscar added spice to the Jollof rice with the 6th goal from close range in 70 minutes to cap an emphatic victory for the team.

It's easy to belittle this victory as one coming against a weak opponent but that would be disingenuous. The Flamingos looked sharp, crisp and composed today. The coordinated well and showed composure when and where it mattered the most.

And it's a victory they can be very proud of.