Nigeria’s Flamingos recorded a commanding 5-0 win away to Guinea, in the second round, first leg qualifier of the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Harmony Chidi Hat-trick Hero
A hat-trick from Harmony Chidi and strikes from Oluwakemi Adegbuyi and Mary Dunstan secured the dominant win for the Flamingos.
Chidi opened the scoring just one minute into the game before making it 2-0 in the 12th minute.
She then completed her hat-trick as she put the Flamingos 3-0 ahead in the 36th minute.
Just two minutes after Chidi got her hat-trick, Adegbuyi got the fourth goal before Dunstan added the fifth goal on 56 minutes.
The second leg will be played on Saturday, 30th May 2026 inside Remo Stars stadium in Ikenne, Ogun State, Nigeria.
The winner over two legs between the Flamingos and Guinea will progress to the third round (final round) of the World Cup qualifiers.
Flamingos History At The U-17 World Cup
The Flamingoes have been to every edition of the World Cup missing only the 2018 edition. Before the 2022 edition, they’ve only gotten as far as the quarterfinals in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 editions respectively.
They broke this “jinx” in 2022 by defeating USA in the quarterfinals via penalties after an entertaining and tightly-closed contest during regulation time which ended 1–1.
Also Read: Busari Reflects On Privilege Of Leading Flamingos
Meanwhile, four teams from Africa will join the automatically qualified host team Morocco in the 2026 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup final tournament from 17 October to 7 November.
This is the third FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup to be held in Africa and Morocco being the second Arab country to host it after Jordan in 2016.
Also, this is the second of five consecutive FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cups to be held in Morocco, set to be played annually until 2029.
North Korea are the defending champions, having won a record fourth title in 2025.
24 Teams To Participate At 2026 U-17 Women’s World Cup
A total of 24 teams will qualify for the final tournament. In addition to Morocco, who qualified automatically as the host nation, the other 23 teams qualified from six separate continental competitions.
Argentina, Australia and Puerto Rico will make their debut, with Puerto Rico participating in their first ever FIFA competition. Venezuela are qualified for the first time since 2016.
By James Agberebi
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