Super Eagles on Friday kicked off their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign on a high note after thumping the Lone Star of Liberia 2-0 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium Lagos, a result that put the Nigerian side on top of the Group C after matchday-1, Completesports.com reports.
The match hero was Leicester City forward, Kelechi Iheanacho who scored the two goals in the 22nd and 44th minutes . He later made way for for captain Ahmed Musa in the 84th minute of the game.
The Liberians started the game full confidence attacking the Super Eagles defence.
Ola Aina attempted a shot from range in the 10 minute , but it went off off target.
Also Read – Live Blogging: Nigeria vs Liberia (World Cup Qualifier)
The Super Eagles nearly took the lead five minutes later, but Joe Aribo failed to hit target after he was set up by Alex Iwobi.
Iheanacho put Nigeria ahead on 22 minutes slotting home following an assist from Iwobi..
Victor Osimhen almost doubled Nigeria’s lead in the 37th minute, but his shot failed to hit target.
Iheanacho scored his second of the game on the stroke of half time with Iwobi once again providing the assist.
The Super Eagles continued with the pressure after the break and Leon Balogun headed narrowly wide from Iheanacho ‘s inch-perfect corner-kick in the 49th minute.
Osimhen’s header from Moses Simon’s cross was saved by Liberia goalkeeper in the 62nd minute.
Super Eagles head coach Gernot Rohr made double substitutions in the 77th minute with Paul Onuachu and Samuel Kalu replacing Osimhen and Simon.
Captain Ahmed Musa and Shehu Abdullahi were also introduced in place of Iheanacho and Iwobi respectively.
Oghenekato Etebo also took the place of Aribo late on.
The Super Eagles will face the Blue Sharks of Cape Verde in their next game on Tuesday.
By James Agberebi at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos
24 Comments
Nice pair of finishing by kelechi….I like the intensity of our players and their williness to play dirty with the Liberian players….. the Librarian players thought they would bully our player with rough tackles and probably get something out of this game but we matched them in that aspect……We top the group with 2 point and 2 goal difference……let’s move to the next match….. hopefully after this match round of matches we will extend our lead on the table to 5
Thank God for winning this game and well done Ihanacho. But it’s a big shame if this is the team that the technical crew could present after six years of building.
Nigeria should not be deceived by the micky mouse teams in this qualifier.
Nigeria should be confident of winning the next Nations cup by now.
So who else should have played better than this boys that played today or which good football would you have enjoyed in this kind of pitch, people go just open their mouth waaaaa as if they have anything meaningful to say!
l expected more goals than these. Algeria crushed them by 6.
all we are saying, play the matches in Uyo.
Algeria are not as wasteful as our boys besides they move the ball quicker than ours boys and are hungrier.
Having said that our boys did well despite the weather conditions and the poor playing surface.
Hopefully they get better in subsequent games,hoping the nff responds to public and teams demands of taking our home games to Uyo stadium.
The pitch in Lagos was a nightmare,I bet Algeria wouldn’t score 6 playing on that horrible pitch!
The real tragedy was the pitch. The Nigeria football organizers’ inefficiency is beginning to undermine our boys. SE would have won 4-0 at least on a better surface. What is wrong with the Nigerian football management body? I am so disappointed.
If the pitch was great, Osigoal would have scored that I know. Aina would have scored for sure. We would have won by at least 5:0.
It is disappointing to see our boys struggle on this soggy pitch where the ball movement is erratic. We’ve got an excellent stadium at Uyo, but petty politicking and selfishness would stop the NFF from using it.
What will be the incentive for other state governments to develop good sporting facilities if unfairness blinds the NFF from doing the right thing?
A big shame indeed!
Good result !!!
BUT Gernot Rohr needs to be doing EARLY SUBSTITUTION
Not late hour(85-min)
Eagles player must be part of choosing where they play their matches. What kind of nonsense is NNF doing?
Liberia can go ahead and send NFF ONIGBESE a thank you card for helping them keep the scores low today. On a standard pitch, they would have been walloped.
Algeria will look like a bunch of amateurs on this pitch. They are fortunate that they have good administrators who provide them with good pitches and other things they need. If our boys had what they have, our boys will also perform.
NFF will never learn. They keep making very stupid mistakes that are undermining the performance of this team. Make no mistake; if Nigeria fails to qualify for the next WC, Pinnick and his men should be blamed.
Why take this match to that terrible pitch? And to Lagos at a time rain falls almost on daily basis in that part of the country? What’s wrong with UYO? I can mention at least three instances when Nigeria missed out on qualifying for major competitions because of bad pitches. We drew Angola on the astro turf pitch of Sanni Abachs in oKano in 2005 and failed to qualify for Germany 2006. We could not also qualify for the 2013 nations cup because of the poor and small pitch in Kaduna. Why can’t we just adopt a stadium as our home and stop using our Super Eagles to appease different governors around the country? God will surely deliver these leaders o. Chai!!!
So painful
2017 Afcon, we won 2013 Afcon in SA
saying all this in csn is nothing because nff & csn won’t bother to even read them. csn will not even publish something about all this bad pitches rather they will be granting interviews to ex internationals. odegbami, amokachi & co will not bother about this rather they will be ranting nonesence. JUST TAKE THIS ANGER TO NFF IG & FACEBOOK PAGE & POST ALL THIS THERE FOR THEM TO BE SEEING IT ALWAYS.
Anybody who condemn these boys is mean and wicked. Common in this horrible pitch the boys were able to force a 2-0 win and someone is still blaming them!!! Algeria will not score 2 goals on this pitch.
Our boys did very well. The pitch is almost like playing on a farm land.
Days prior to this game, rohr raised an alarm regarding the very poor nature of the pitch but his concerns fell on the deaf ears of people who were only bent on derailing the team in their first crucial world cup qualifiers. Some idiots said he was already making excuses for failure whilst overlooking the reality on ground. This is one big problem we have in this country, we hate people that tell us the truth. Anybody that tells us the truth automatically becomes an enemy of the state and that is why we are where we are today. Rohr has been fought from every angle bcs he has always stood by the truth whilst exposing the powers that be and their wickedness and as always, with God on his side, he churns convincing results against all odds that were deliberately created by people who shouldve known better. Why should our national team be playing such a crucial match on such a horrible pitch? Must everything be piliticized in this country????? Haba! And yet we have people who call themselves sport or football administrators. Does it mean that no pitch assessment team was sent before hand to assess the nature of the pitch that our prestigious senior national team with their array of stars will play on? What sort of impression would most foreign born players whom we’ve been looking for ways to poach have about our team? Would they still have the appetite to make a decision to play for us after seeing the national team play on such a horrible pitch????? How much will it cost the federal govt to give us a simple good standard turf were our national team would be playing??? What happened to the uyo stadium which gradually became a slaughter ground for the national team with its state of the art facilities that are second to none in Africa??????? What a shame! I know those mother f…. Ckers : ex cricket internationals, omo9ja and their miserable bunch of losers were just rubbing their hands to see the national team fail to churn out results on such a horrible pictch but I believe they’ve been disappointed yet again. There heads have been slammed against the wall like a train hitting a road block. They set traps for that man, he just scales through them like beans. Congratulations to the team and shame on the Nigerian govt, the nff and to those miserable bunch of losers here on this forum. Ndi Ara.
kelechi and Iwobi, Bravo to you both.
As I said in my other comment, we can only blame the performance of our boys on NFF because of that bad pitch right.
During the world cup qualifiers Nigeria against Sudan if am not mistaken, the road
to 2002 world cup.
The pitch was very bad but our Super Eagles hold their own against the home team. Aghahowa scored in that match. Nigeria needed to win that match at all cost which we did in the end but the match wasn’t an easy one though.
Super Eagles entertained the crowd on that very bad and unpleasant pitch and Jay Jay was trying to do Aghahowa celebration lol.
Long story short, we have to wait and see the way Super Eagles play against Cape Verde.
Then we can analyze the team properly.
For now, NFF fumbled big time but no matter what, Super Eagles didn’t play like a team that have bn together for five years.
All in all, we are happy that we have gotten the most important 3 points in that match.
Congratulations Nigerians. God bless Nigeria!!!
It is until they loose that we will see you here blaming the Rohr and the players. We are waiting.
You are disappointed that your plans and evil wishes did not come to pass. Forget the presence. We know u people. Wicked soul like u. I know u must be rolling on the ground on why they didn’t lose albeit playing on a horrible pitch. Now the team won against all possible odds (bad pith and back log of salaries being owed), who will the glory go to? The coach or the players? Since the coach always bears the brunt of ur sadism whenever the team draws or loses (hardly), I hope you’d be courageous enough to give credit to whom it is due in this regard but your wicked heart and bad belle no go gree una. Na to just come out and commend the “team” but when they lose, una go single out the coach and forget about the team. Bunch of losers.
Pretence***
IHEANACHO RUNNING AND TIP TOEING IN OTHER FOR HIM NOT TO SLIP WHILE CHASING A BALL TOWARDS THROWING WAS THE HIGHT OF A BAD SOCCER PITCH. NIGERIA NFF AND LAGOS STATE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THIS NONSENSE THEY CALLED PITCH TO RISK PLAYERS CAREERS. IT WAS GLARING EVEN THEY THEMSELVES SAW IT. WELL DONE EAGLES. LETS HOPE CAPE VERDE FA WON’T FOLLOW SUIT.
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