Nigeria’s Super Eagles B side kicked off their African Nations Championship (CHAN) campaign on a disappointing note, falling 1-0 to Senegal in their opening Group D clash on Tuesday night, Bold Sports reports.
The Eagles began brightly, aiming to seize early control of the match and carve out scoring opportunities. However, their efforts were met by a compact and disciplined Senegalese defence that gave little away in the final third.
Early bookings for Raymond Tochukwu and captain Nduka Junior disrupted Nigeria’s momentum, with both players receiving yellow cards inside the opening half hour. The cautions appeared to affect the team’s rhythm, as they struggled to build fluid attacking moves.
While Senegal showed strength in defence, their attacking efforts were largely ineffective in the first half. Despite registering a few attempts, none posed a real threat to Nigerian goalkeeper Mustapha Lawal.
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In the 69th minute, Nigeria were forced into a change as Harrison Uzondu came on to replace the injured Taiwo Abdulrafiu. Just minutes later, Senegal struck decisively with Christian Gomis converting what was their first shot on target to give his side the lead.
In response, Nigeria’s head coach Eric Chelle made a double substitution, introducing Shola Adelani and Vincent Temitope for Jabbar Malik and Qudus Akanni in search of an equalizer. However, Senegal held firm defensively, frustrating Nigeria’s efforts and seeing out the game to claim all three points.
The defeat means Nigeria must now secure a positive result in their next fixture against Sudan on Tuesday, August 12, while Senegal will look to make it two wins from two when they face Congo on the same day.
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