Ghana defeated Niger 2-0 in an all-African Round of 16 clash at the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday. The win earns the Black Starlets a quarter-final clash versus another African opponent in Mali on Saturday in Guwahati.<\/p>\n
Ghana dominated the first half, creating 13 attempts to Niger\u2019s lone effort. The West Africans created the first chance on 25 minutes, as Edmund Arko-Mensah\u2019s powerful strike produced a top save from Niger goalkeeper Khaled Lawali.<\/p>\n
The Ghanaians had to wait until first-half stoppage time to finally break through, as they were awarded a penalty after Eric Ayiah was cut down in the Niger box by Farouk Idrissa. The Ghana captain stepped up to convert the spot-kick for his third goal of the tournament.<\/p>\n
The Black Starlets kept pressing forward after the break, with Gideon Mensah missing a great opportunity to double Ghana\u2019s lead from close range. Ayiah could have had a second penalty goal after Idrissa fouled Emmanuel Toku in the Niger box, but Lawali was equal to his spot-kick effort.<\/p>\n
The second goal would arrive in the final moments, as substitute Richard Danso\u2019s strike proved too strong for Lawali to keep out of his net, as Ghana capped a convincing performance at the Dr. DY Patil Stadium.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: FIFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana defeated Niger 2-0 in an all-African Round of 16 clash at the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday. The win earns the Black Starlets a quarter-final clash versus another African opponent in Mali on Saturday in Guwahati. Ghana dominated the first half, creating 13 attempts to Niger\u2019s lone effort. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[299,1183,300],"class_list":["post-362951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-black-starlets","tag-niger","tag-u-17-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=362951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=362951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=362951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=362951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}