U17 AFCON: Ugbade demands more 'prolific' Golden Eaglets in crunch tie vs South Africa

It’s crunch time for Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets and their manager Nduka Ugbade as they take on South Africa later today at the U17 AFCON.

Ugbade has asked his players to be more clinical against the South Africans as they look to right the wrongs from the previous game in the decisive final group game in Group B.

Nigeria and their South African counterparts are looking to join Morocco in the knockout round when they take to the pitch later tonight in Constantine, Algeria.

After the unfortunate defeat to Morocco in the previous game, Nigeria will be looking for a return to winning ways against the Amajimbos.

The Golden Eaglets fell to a 1-0 loss to Morocco despite a dominant performance that saw them create several chances to put their North Africans to the sword.

However, the Eaglets failed to make their dominance count, missing all the chances en route and finding themselves in a difficult situation going into the final group game.

Ahead of the all-important game against South Africa, coach Ugbade says his side has moved on from the defeat but must up their finishing against South Africa.

“We have put the defeat against Morocco behind our backs and we are fully focused on getting a good result against South Africa,” he told CAF.

“We didn’t deserve to lose against Morocco because we dominated the game but couldn’t convert our chances.”

Nigeria created several chances against the Moroccans, with over 12 attempts but was only able to get four on target. Coach Ugbade is at a loss as to why this is the case as the Eaglets were free-scoring before heading to Algeria.

“We want to be more effective, more prolific in front of goal. It is a bit confusing because when we were in Nigeria preparing, we were scoring so many goals but when we came here we are not doing that.”

“Sometimes with these young ones, it is about psychology and we have addressed that.”