Cameroon beat Nigeria 1-0 at the Stade Larbi Zaouli in Casablanca, and that result did two things at once: it put them into the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals and it qualified them for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil. The holders got neither.
Maéva Nyadjou scored it in the 20th minute. Nyadjou is a defender, she is nineteen, and her effort was the only shot Cameroon managed in the entire first half. One. Nigeria had nine in the same period, five of them on target, and touched the ball fourteen times inside the Cameroonian box to their opponents’ one. The expected-goals figure for those forty-five minutes was 0.04 to Cameroon and 1.15 to Nigeria.
The goalkeeper who held the result up
Michaely Bihina made nine saves. In the first half alone she faced 2.19 expected goals on target and conceded none; by full time that figure had reached 2.94, and her goals-prevented number finished at +2.94 — the gap between what the quality of the shots said she should have conceded and what she actually did. No other player on the pitch came close to her rating.
The defence in front of her was strikingly young: Ivana Yakana is twenty, Nyadjou nineteen and Bihina herself twenty-two. Cameroon made 47 clearances; Nigeria made 15.
Three injuries in sixteen minutes
Cameroon began to come apart from the inside at exactly the moment they needed to hold firm. Colette Ndzana, wearing the armband, went off injured in the 57th minute. Marie Ngah Manga followed in the 71st, also injured. Naomi Eto went in the 73rd. Three of head coach Valentine Nguele’s five substitutions were not her choice: the match made them for her.
Even so, the second half was not the siege the first had promised. Cameroon had seven shots — six more than in the opening forty-five minutes — put two on target, won two corners and had 43% of the ball. In expected goals that period finished 0.58 to Cameroon and 0.69 to Nigeria: near enough level. The statistical hammering had all happened before the interval.
Nigeria had nineteen shots and never found the net
The holders’ final numbers are those of a side that did almost everything except score: 19 shots, 9 on target, 14 from inside the box, four clear chances, 32 touches in the opposition area, 60% possession and 72% passing accuracy against Cameroon’s 61%. Eleven of their thirty-two crosses found a teammate; one of Cameroon’s ten did.
Justine Madugu went to his bench early — two changes on the hour — and held Asisat Oshoala back until the 92nd minute, with stoppage time already running. It was too late. Namibian referee Twanyanyukwa showed three yellow cards, two to Cameroon — Charlène Meyong and Yakana — and one to Nigeria’s Michelle Alozie.
What each of them has left
Cameroon return to a World Cup seven years on: their last was in 2019. They do it by beating, for the first time, the side that had won all three African finals they contested and knocked them out in both 2018 and 2022, as the preview of this match set out. On Wednesday the 12th they play hosts Morocco in the semi-final at 21:00.
Nigeria are not out of the World Cup, though they are out of the title race. On Thursday the 13th, in Casablanca, they play the qualifying play-off against South Africa. Winning it does not hand them a ticket to Brazil either: it earns one of Africa’s two places in the intercontinental play-offs staged in November and February. The road still open to them is set out in the tournament bracket, and the full context in the Women’s AFCON guide.
