Nigeria’s Under-23 striker, Raheem Olawale Lawal is pained that it was not him and his team-mates that will play in the final of the CAF Under-23 Championship taking place Saturday in Morocco.

Lawal scored a hat-trick in their 4-1 thrashing of Algeria in their final group game last Friday. But it was a little too late for Lawal as they were home on Tuesday after losing to Morocco and Senegal in their previous matches.

Lawal argued that things would have been different, if good-luck had rubbed off a little on them.

“In our first game we played well. But we conceded a penalty. After that goal was scored our confidence was shaken.

“Then in our game against Senegal we did all we could to be in the game, but we were shatter when Senegal put two goals behind us.

We tried to fight back, but we couldn’t turn the game around.. It was not that we didn’t play well, we were just unlucky,”

After losing to Morocco and Senegal, Nigeria needed a big win against Algeria. They banked on Morocco to beat the Senegalese so that they could have a life-line. However, that never happened as Morocco succumbed to Senegal even as Nigeria beat the Algerians who had taken the lead, but surprisingly let Nigeria off the hook as they missed three clear chances that would have killed off the game.

This was when Lawal stepped in and inspired the team to what perhaps, would stand as consolation victory.

“I feel high that scored a hat-trick but at the same sad that we are out and the did not qualify for the Olympics”, the lad who also won the man of the match award said.