FIFA lists Oduamadi as Africa’s first Confederation Cup hat-trick star

The world football governing body, FIFA, has hailed Nigeria’s Nnamdi
Oduamadi as the first African player to score a hat-trick in its
Confederation Cup.
In a similar vein, Jonathan Tehau will go down in history as the first
Tahitian player to score in a FIFA tournament.
The goal Tehau scored against Nigeria has also become historical,
according to a PANA Correspondent, covering the 2013 FIFA
Confederations Cup tournament in Brazil.
FIFA also pointed out the sequence of hat-tricks in the Confederation
Cup, noting that the last three hat-tricks in the FIFA Confederation
Cup have come against Oceania teams.
Before Oduamadi’s treble against Tahiti, Spain’s Fernando Torres had
hit three goals against New Zealand in 2009.
That was preceded in 2005 by a hat-trick by Argentina’s Luciano
Figueroa against Australia, who were Oceania Football Confederation
representatives at the time.
Nigeria’s 6-1 victory on Monday against Tahiti was also the biggest
winning margin ever achieved by an African side in the FIFA
Confederation Cup.
Nigeria remains unbeaten in the FIFA Confederations Cup, having
notched two wins and two draws.
Tahiti-Nigeria is one of eight FIFA Confederations Cup matches to have
yielded seven goals.
The only game to have produced more was Brazil’s 8-2 win over Saudi
Arabia in 1999.
Jonathan Tehau is the first player to score a goal and an own-goal in
a FIFA Confederations Cup match.
Overall, however, he is the seventh player to do it in the finals of a
FIFA competition.
The first was Dutchman Ernie Brandts against Italy in the FIFA World Cup 1978.
The second was Italy’s Gianni Comandini at the Men’s Olympic Football
Tournament in 2000, who netted two goals plus an own goal against
Honduras.
Two players achieved the feat at the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2003, namely
USA’s Dwight Owens against Korea Republic and Portugal’s Marcio Sousa
against Yemen.
Then in 2005, Mexico’s Efrain Juarez did it at the next U-17
tournament against Costa Rica, followed that same year by Brazil’s
Edcarlos against Morocco at the FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Tehau is unfortunate in being the first player to score for both sides
and still lose, whereas the previous six all ended up on the winning
team.
Meanwhile, FIFA has deregistered Nigeria’s left wing back, Uwa
Echiejile, from the scorers’ list at the Confederation Cup.
The player, who picked the ball when it bounced off the match referee,
kicked the ball which also hit another defender before finding the
net, had earlier been listed as the scorer of Nigeria’s opening goal,
just under five minutes.
But following further studies of the video of the match, FIFA’s
Technical Study Group has decided that the first goal by Nigeria was
an own goal by Tahiti‘s number 10 Nicolas Vallar.
PANA/NAN.