The Nigerian U21 handball team suffered a second successive defeat at the ongoing World Junior Handball Championship in Spain as they lost by a margin of 17 goals in a 30:47 defeat to fellow Africans Egypt at the As Travesas Sports Hall in Vigo on Wednesday.

Nigeria had lost their opening match in Group B to France on Monday but any hopes they had of getting their campaign off the ground were firmly crushed by a ruthless Egypt side who have now won both of their games.

Egypt had beaten Nigeria last year in the CAHB Men’s African Junior Championship on their way to winning the continental title but while that encounter was closely fought, Tuesday’s evisceration was anything but.

Nigeria was perhaps stymied by having named a 12-man team to Spain instead of the full 16 required and then had to contend with losing Suleiman Usman to injury and Anthony Ngbede Agada to a red card later on. That lack of options off the bench cost them in the end.

They started well though and raced to a 3:0 lead after five minutes but when Egypt eventually settled into the game, there was only going to be one winner despite the heroics of Michael Agbaji Solomon in the Nigeria goal. 

Unfortunately, with 16 technical faults in attack coupled with the injury and red card, Nigeria did not stand a chance against an Egyptian attack which saw eight goals apiece from Mohsen Ramadan Mahmoud and Shehab Abdalla Ahmed, and nine from Galal Ayman Khorshid, while the best player of the match, Abdelrahman Taha Ali defeated Nigeria at the other end of the court, making 14 saves in the Egyptian goal.

Nigeria will attempt to recover and recoup with no matches slated for today before they resume their campaign against the Republic of Korea on Friday, July 19, 2019.