Nigeria and Switzerland battled for 90 minutes in the amazing atmosphere created at the Abuja national Stadium. The Match kicked off at 7 pm in the evening after Spain successfully defeated the Colombian team in the 3rd Place play off by the same score line 1-0. Isco was the sole goalscorer for the Spanish and the Spanish no10 jersey had a fantastic tournament in Nigeria. Nigeria did start the final match against Spain with more intent and dominated the first half. The Nigerian fans took up every available seat at the Stadium and it may very well have been the largest turnout for an U17 match in the World. Certainly it was the largest turnout for that level of football in Nigeria. The Nigerian team however could not convert any of the great chances that they had while they were in the ascendancy in the first half.
As the old adage in football goes, football is a game of two halves and the second half was very different form the first. The Swiss somehow got rid of their stage fright and came out to counter attack the Nigerians in the 2nd half. They showed a lot more intent and purpose and eventually got their reward in the 70th minute from a set piece, a corner Kick headed in by the Swiss no9 . the Nigerians struck the cross bar in the 83rd minute and it was looking more and more like it was not going to be their day. The Swiss successfully held out to win the tournament in what was a remarkable achievement for any European side to adapt to the African weather and beat a very talented and promising Nigerian team in a World cup final in front of their home crowd. The World will not forget Sani Emmanuel (MVP /Golden ball recipient and silver boot for scoring 5 goals) Stanley Okoro, Edafe Egbedi and the talented Ramon Azeez in Midfield (bronze ball winner). Well done to ALL the youth players that represented their countries at Nigeria 2009. Well done to the Nigerian team especially for playing such beautiful football and finally we salute the champions of the FIFA U17 World Cup Nigeria 2009-Switzerland. You are the deserved champions and the world will expect you to build on this in the future.