STRIKERS CRISIS HITS FLYING EAGLES

Challenges keep mounting for the Flying Eagles at the FIFA U-20 World Cup as the team’s attacking personnel has been striped to its barest minimum.



Despite losing its second match in the tournament 0-2 to Spain on Monday, the Eagles still have an outside chance to make it into the second round as one of the four best third-place finishers from the competition’s six groups if they run up a cricket score victory over Tahiti on Thursday.



But prospects of that happening seem to be dimming after Complete Sports found out that there could just be only one striker available to the Eagles for the encounter.



Team captain, Odion Ighalo, who has led the front line for the Eagles since EGYPT 2009 got under way, talked himself out of contention against Tahiti when he bagged a second yellow card in successive matches for persistent harassment of the referee.



The Udinese of Italy marksman had got his name in the arbiter’s book for the same offence against Venezuela.



Gbolahan Salami, a winger who has played as a central striker for the Eagles in the past, is also forced out of the game after he was shown a straight red card against Spain.



The probable absence of the Nigerian junior national team’s other forward liners on Thursday is on medical grounds.



Romania-based Kehinde Fatai, who came into the tournament as the Eagles best goals prospect following his net-shaking exploits during the team’s preparation, went down to sickness even before the end of the Spain tie.



Fatai, it was revealed to Complete Sports, had complained of headache even before the match, which he started, and could not return for the second half after he started vomiting in the dressing room during the interval.



It remains to be seen how well he will recover in the next two days before the game against Tahiti as he is expected to sit out Tuesday morning’s training.



Stanley Ohawuchi, who took Fatai’s central attacking place on Monday, will himself not finish the game after he was elbowed in an off-the-ball incident in the 62nd minute.



The Bayelsa United forward, who finished the last season in Nigeria as one of the top scorers before his transfer to Atletico Baleares of Spain, would be taken to hospital and only joined the rest of the team at their hotel two and half hours after the game.



Despite being discharged from hospital, Ohawuchi was still not fully okay as he told Complete Sports that he could not stand straight and was also having problems walking, making him a big doubt for the October 1 match.



With the likely absence of four players in the Eagles attack, Nigeria could be going into their last Group B game with only one recognisable striker in Daniel Chima Uchechi.