Nigeria’s U-17 women’s national team, the Flamingos, have officially booked their place at the 2026 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco following an entertaining and high-scoring qualifying campaign, Trybal News reports.
The Flamingos sealed qualification with a thrilling 5-3 victory over Benin Republic in the second leg of the final qualifying round, completing an 8-5 aggregate triumph to claim one of Africa’s four automatic qualification slots for the tournament.
Nigeria will now join host nation Morocco and three other African representatives at the expanded 24-team competition, scheduled to take place from 17 October to 7 November 2026.
The Flamingos were dominant throughout the qualification series and announced themselves as serious contenders from the outset. In the second round, they overwhelmed Guinea with an emphatic 11-0 aggregate victory, recording a 5-0 away win before following it up with a 6-0 success on home soil.
Harmony Chidi led the scoring charge with five goals during the campaign, while Oluwakemi Adegbuyi, Queen Joseph, Mary Dunstan and Precious Oscar all made significant contributions to Nigeria’s impressive attacking displays.
The final hurdle proved to be a resilient Benin side. After securing a hard-fought 3-2 victory in the first leg in Ikenne, the Flamingos produced another clinical performance in the return fixture in Togo to complete the job in style and punch their ticket to Morocco.
With qualification now secured, attention turns to the global stage, where Head Coach Akeem Busari and his technical crew will be aiming to improve on Nigeria’s previous performances at the tournament.
Having already shown their quality and attacking prowess throughout the qualifiers, the Flamingos will head to Morocco with ambitions of reaching the latter stages of the competition and potentially writing another historic chapter in Nigerian women’s football.
