Nigeria head coach Hakeem Busari has said blocking Brazil’s passing lines was the key to the Flamingos’ 3-1 semi-final win at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

The victory on Wednesday sent Nigeria into their first final at the tournament, where they will face Japan on Saturday. The Flamingos had 35 attempts on target to Brazil’s seven, and Brazil managed only one shot on target.

Busari said the plan was to stop the South Americans from using their technical quality to build play.

“Brazil really showed the stuff they have technically, but we tried to really block the view of their passing line, so we had to show character,” he said.

Queen Joseph opened the scoring in the 56th minute before Awawu Bashiru scored twice to make it 3-0. Greise Kelly pulled one back for Brazil in the 89th minute.

The result capped a strong recovery for Nigeria, who lost 2-1 to Poland in their opening game. They later beat DPR Korea 3-1 in the group stage and Venezuela 1-0 in the quarter-final.

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Japan reached the final by beating defending champions DPR Korea on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Busari believes his experience against DPR Korea will help.

“They want to build the ball, they look at the high line of passes, they want their full-backs to support, so we really want to look at all that,” he said.

The former Pacesetter Queens coach said reaching the final was not the end goal.

“We just really want to pick up the trophy. That would be the icing on the cake,” he said.