Super Eagles fly to second round as Egypt limped past Guinea Bissau

The Super Eagles celebrate their early opener against Sudan on Saturday. It ended 3-1 in favor of the Nigerians. (Photo credit: GOAL)

The Super Eagles of Nigeria soared to the next round of the ongoing African Cup of Nations after a dominant display against Sudan in Cameroon on Saturday.

Samuel Chukwueze, Taiwo Awoniyi and Moses Simon scored the goals as the Super Eagles beat the Sudanese 3-1, an infringement in the Nigeria late in the game handed Sudan a lifeline from the spot and it wasn’t missed as Walieldin Khidir converted the penalty.

It took only three minutes for the Super Eagles to register the first goal as the Villareal man found space in the Sudanese defense and fired home the opener, the second goal however came at the tail end of the first half.

A corner kick was fumbled into the direction of Taiwo Awoniyi, although he didn’t know a lot about it but the ball bounced off him and into the Sudanese net, the goalkeeper won’t want to see that again as that effort had no business beating him at his near post.

Like it was in the first half, Nigeria made it three in the very first minute of the second half; Moses Simon danced through the Sudanese defense and slotted home cleanly, the defense of the Sudanese left a lot to be desired there.

In the other group D game of the day, Mohammed Salah scored the only goal of the game to hand the Egyptian a lifeline but the Guinea-Bissau team will feel hard done by the VAR after it chalked off a beautiful goal scored late on by the team in red.

Egypt huffed and puffed throughout the first half and it was looking like another frustrating evening for the Pharoes until Salah fired home from an acute angle to end the resilience of their opponents and registered Egypt’s first points of the tournament.

Nigeria are through to the next round as they can’t finish below second, Guinea Bissau must now beat Nigeria comprehensively to stand a chance of qualifying and hope Egypt does them a favor against Sudan but the latter can also qualify if they beat Egypt and Nigeria doesn’t lose to Guinea Bissau.