Christy Ucheibe finally made her senior debut for Nigeria in Wednesday's 1-0 victory over Cote d'Ivoire in Abidjan.
The 21-year-old, who represented Nigeria at the 2014 U17 and 2018 U20 Women's World Cups, saw the final 25 minutes as the Super Falcons completed the double over the Ivorians with a 3-0 aggregate win to qualify for the Women's Africa Cup of Nations.
After the win at Stade Robert Champroux, the midfielder said she was pleased to have had the opportunity to make a winning first appearance and she will always treasure the day she turned out for the senior team for the first time.
“It felt really great and I think it was really important to get some minutes and it was really amazing to feature at the senior level, it was really important to get this feeling,” Ucheibe told SportNewsAfrica.
“Well, it was an unbelievable feeling, and it is an emotional day for me, playing for the senior, it was really special and I was looking forward to it and today is the day that I will treasure because we also got the result we wanted to qualify for WAFCON."
The midfielder, who is on the brink of securing her second Portuguese title with SL Benfica is hopeful of a more successful outing ahead in the future campaigns with the Super Falcons.
On the victory over the lady Elephants, she said: “It was a physical game, and we tried to cope up with the physicality, we did our very best to keep a clean sheet and get the winning goal in the end to qualify."
"It is the qualifying tournament, so we still have a lot of time to work out on the areas that we have to work on and I am sure that at the main competition we will do even much better.”
Nigeria are nine-time African champions and will make their 12th successive appearance in Morocco, where they will be eyeing their 10th crown and also the ninth Women's World Cup berth.
