Fisayo Dele-Bashiru scored the winner as Nigeria defeated Libya 1-0 in their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying match at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Group D encounter was a game of missed chances, gamesmanship from the Libyans and poor officiating by the referees but Dele-Bashiru proved the hero the Eagles needed with his late strike.<\/span><\/p>\n Coach Austin Eguavoen switched to a 4-3-3 with Ademola Lookman and Victor Boniface leading the attack alongside Moses Simon.<\/span><\/p>\n The Super Eagles had the first chance of the encounter when the Libya goalkeeper was forced into a save by Alex Iwobi. The team continued to have the upper hand but failed to make it count as William Troost-Ekong, the Eagles captain, fired wide from a rebound, following a save off Frank Onyeka\u2019s shot.<\/span><\/p>\n Iwobi was then expertly denied by a point-blank save as both teams went into the interval on level terms.<\/span><\/p>\n Iwobi continued to enter the box at the right time but his finishing was abysmal, with the 27-year-old heading high and wide from six yards out before blazing a half-volley wide minutes later as Nigeria probed the Libyans more on the right wing.<\/span><\/p>\n The Libyans settled into time-wasting routine but Lookman found the back of the net with a low shot after exchanging passes but he was deemed offside despite replays showing otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n Nigeria scored minutes later when Dele-Bashiru fired into the far corner from centre of the box off Simon\u2019s pass from the wing, leaving the goalkeeper rooted to the spot while fans celebrated wildly.<\/span><\/p>\n The goal ensured Eguavoen\u2019s side secured all three points to put them closer to qualification.<\/span><\/p>\n Victory takes Nigeria to seven points on the log from three matches, leading group D at the halfway mark of the qualification series.<\/span><\/p>\n The Super Eagles travel to Benghazi to face the Libyans on matchday four on October 15.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fisayo Dele-Bashiru scored the winner as Nigeria defeated Libya 1-0 in their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying match at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4326,9119,5339,707],"class_list":["post-20029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-afcon-qualifiers","tag-dele-bashiru","tag-libya","tag-super-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20031,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029\/revisions\/20031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}