Senegal captain, Samba Diallo says sticking to the plans of their coach played a crucial role in the victory against Flying Eagles of Nigeria.
The Cubs edged out the seven-time champions 1-0 courtesy of Soulemane Faye’s close range effort on 40 minutes.
“We did everything to win today and get the three points,” Diallo said after receiving his award following the win over Nigeria,” Diallo was quoted by CAFonline.
Read Also: 2023 U-20 AFCON: Flying Eagles Will Bounce Back Against Egypt — Bosso
“We respect everyone, but we will fight in every game to stay commpetitive in the competition.
The midfielder, who plays for Ukrainian side Dinamo Kiev, stated that his team stuck to the coach’s game plan before reaffirming Senegal’s title ambitions.
“We carried out the coach’s instructions and adhered to the plan, and the result was that we succeeded in winning the match,”he added.
“We are a distinguished team and we will continue to do everything we can to win the title.”
By Adeboye Amosu
19 Comments
Something I have observed about this our archaic pattern of wing play, that disregards build up play from the rare to give good balance to a team is, (1) It can be devastatingly effective, producing goals especially when you’ve got ruthlessly skillful wingers and strikers and when the team we’re playing make the mistake of playing an all attacking style. But against teams, with conservative approach, building from the rear with good balance in the defence and midfield, we are bound to look as headless chickens running aimlessly and shooting out of frustration hoping for help from heaven to direct those wayward shots into the opponent’s goal. And the opposing team seeing we losing idea of what to do haven clipped our wings, get us to start playing kick n follow which they tend to easily deal thus getting our teams to become totally confused, disoriented n almost going on their knees begging the referee to quickly end the game before they pass out.
@Glory, you said it all.
Once that wing strategy is naturalized, our coaches and players are usually useless .and beret of ideas .That is to say that we do not have real-time coaches with in-depth technical tactics knowledge, to change tactics during game time
Brodaman Onero, that’s just what it is albeit really sad. You don’t wanna be watching any Nigerian team in that situation, as it leaves a painful biting hold on one’s heart seeing such dreadful displays.
Another noticeable deficiency in most of our local coaches, is they don’t have EYES for true talent; maybe corruption has totally gotten them totally blind.
There are footballers and there is a footballer born to play ball, with the x-factor quality. Problems now is, our national teams are now being loaded with 99% footballers n 1% footballers with the x-factor quality.
I can put a bet that, in this present generation, I could easily I have being in the national team which was always going to be wide goose chase in the early eighties to late 90s.
In the last 12 months:
Tunisia: how we beat Nigeria
Ghana: how we beat Nigeria.
Zambia: how we bear the Super Falcons
South Africa: how we beat S Falcons
Mexico: how we beat Super Eagles and Super Falcons
Columbia: how we beat Super Falcons
Portugal: how we beat Nigeria.
Morocco: how we beat the Super Falcons
Senegal: how we beat the Flying Eagles
Is there any reason to continue being a fan of our national teams? I wonder.
At least you safeguarded our Flamingoes but I think the falconets needed to be in your list.
Nigeria teams seem to be on the basis of cash-and-callups. Recycling local coaches too is also an Achilles heel. They become untouchables and demi gods
Suddenly, Nigeria has become the runt of the litter. Oh, how are the mighty fallen! For inside Africa fa! When before they all shudder and shake in their boots hearing they’re facing Nigeria. Now every one of them is rehearsing their version of ‘How we beat Nigeria” before the match even kicks off. Move over Lesotho, Eritrea and Djibouti, make some space on the back row for us.
Chai! I knew it wouldn’t be long before the culture of corruption totally consume the only passion left. You can’t tell me these are the best U20 legs in Nigeria cos some community teams in Lagos or Abuja go beat them. Nigeria jagajaga, No money, No cash, No government, No football. No nothing.
Nigerian fanscshould stop being Debbie Downers, its just one game. The Senegalese were lucky to have scored that goal. IfvAdams had taken his chance invd 1st half and Daga wasn’t injured i believe the outcome of the game would have been different. With Daga and ogbelu (not sure i spelt his name right) our midfield was solid and dominating. The injury to Daga created a big void inbour midfield allowing the senegalese to take advantage. People say the FE only had a shot on goal, how many did Senegal have? How many people here tot we would beat the Cubs of Senegal when d draw came out, we all knew it was a 50/50 chance, that any team could win. The team needs to be encourage to put up a better performance next game, which am sure they will do. The team just needs to win regardless of how attractive they play. We don’t have monopoly on winning. Bosso qualified this team so he has every right to select d players he feels can give him d results he needs be it local or foreign based. Nobody here was in camp to know how players fared b4 he decided to select or drop players. Same wing play people are castigating him for won us the WAFU B tournament and was on an 18 game winning streak b4 dis loss. Cut d team some slack, they are representing the nation much beyter than most of us here are doing to be honest. The team was unlucky yesterday but i saw a team trying to play good football but just met a strong resolute and disciplined senegal side. There wasn’t much between d 2 sides in my view (maybe senegal shaded it slightly). I predict we beat egyotvand mozambique to make it out of dis group. Bosso and his team just needs to wstop d long balls and keep d ball simple and moving, use dia speed and take dia cjances when they come. Good luck FE great ambassadors of d nation. We are behind u, do ur best is what is required of u.
Wouldn’t have said it better @Proudly 9ja.
Daga is the star midfielder of the flying eagles his substitution through injury seriously affected the rythme of the flying eagles gifting the midfield contests to the Senegalese.Prior to the injury both sides where sizing each other with Nigeria having a slight edge in the midfield battle.I hope Daga has recovered from the injury and available against Egypt because him in the midst gives us a very good chance of progressing.
Meanwhile,Egypt and Mozambique weren’t impressive neither so we are playing a beatable Egyptian side let’s keep fingers crossed even a lose against Egypt may not knock us out of the playoffs should we win with a big margin in our final game with results from other games to our favour.
There’s all to play for never say never!
Eguavoen went to afcon with only plan A.
Bosso is also in u20 afcon with only one plan…..
Guess the plan…..
WING PLAY.
Once this plan is nullify just like what happened against Tunisia, our local coaches becomes redundant of what to do next.
These are coaches we claim they are better than Rohr. Rohr is far better in game approach than our local coaches. All what our local coaches and the 1994 gang knows is WING PLAY. That’s the end of their football knowledge.
How many plan does Rohr have??? Stop comparing nonsense with another nonsense…..
Ghana also neutralised our wing play to claim a world cup qualification.
However,I don’t think wing play is the problem but the application of it.
Many successful teams today attack from the wings yet are a success.I shall name but a few.The likes of;
Real Madrid
Barcelona
Manchester United
Chelsea
Arsenal
Manchester City
Psg
Napoli
These aforementioned teams adopt wing play week in and out yet are unstoppable,what our national team coaches should do is study how this teams make a success of wing play and follow suit.
Countries that adopted wing play in the last world cup in Qatar are;
France
England
Morocco
Brazil
Ghana
@ Greenturf, those countries play a very balanced approach of wing play, where there is gradual buildup play from the rare, then into the midfield, maintaining possession of the ball for a good amount of time before releasing attacking threat through the wings. But in our case, we release balls to wings right from defence believing our wingers will out-run, outsmart opposing team defence n score; forgetting that that one player can’t do it all by himself.
THERE IS SOMETHING FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT ABOUT KEEPING POSSESSION FOR A GOOD AMOUNT OF TIME; IT GIVES CONFIDENCE TO A TEAM, GIVE THEM BELIEF, PUT OPPOSING TEAM UNDER PRESSURE, CREATE PANICK FOR OPPOSING TEAMS AND MANY MORE. THIS IS ONE AREA OUR TEAMS ARE FAILING SERIOUSLY.
I get that @Glory.
Our boys on sunday struggled for possession because Senegal pressed high up the pitch and covered every space on the pitch leaving the flying eagles no choice other than to play long balls which were easily dealt with by the taller and more athletic Senegalese defence.
Our coaches should also teach our boys in training how to make successful passes in short spaces,we should also adopt high press to make it difficult for the opposition team to own the midfield.Losing Daga too who is flying eagles midfield lynchpin gifted Senegal the midfield.
Well we have to wait until after the group games to fully assess their performances because it’s too early to write them off.
Very true @ Greenturf, Daga n the guy operating from the right wing are only about the players with potentials. Nigeria is fast lacking confident ball playing midfielders, who can hold onto the ball dictating proceedings from the middle. Presently only IWOBI, does that for us. Mikel, Etebo n Azubuike okechukwu used to do that very well too, but while Mikel is retired,Etebo is no longer the Etebo we used to know, n Azu is very unsettled. If I was Peseiro, I will take a gamble on OVIE EJARIA irrespective of what is happening in his club which isn’t for football reasons. He is one of those rare type of midfielders that can handle the ball with supreme confidence. We need good numbers in that position.
And God willing, this flying eagles qualify for the world cup, NFF must try get that boy Shotire to come play that role. He is another player with such quality.
YOU NO WHAT? OUR ATLANTA 1996, AND 1994 TEAM WITH JJ Okocha AND THOMPSON OLIHA respectively ALONG WITH SUNDAY OLISEH produced what should be our national teams midfield template.. These players were the powerful engine that propelled those teams to excel.
PLAYERS WITH X- FACTOR QUALITY ALWAYS HAVE THIS SUPREME CONFIDENT HOLD/CONTROL OF THE BALL, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE POSITION THEY PLAY. THAT IS ONE QUALITY I LIKE IN OLA AINA EVEN AS A DEFENDER.. THIS QUALITY SHOULD BE THE NO. 1 NATIONAL TEAM QUALITY A GOOD COACH MUST LOOK OUT FOR WHEN INVITING PLAYERS AND NOT JUST ABOUT A PLAYER SCORING FOR CLUB OR HAVING REGULAR GAME TIME, AS THESE COULD BE QUITE DECIEVING.
Yeah @Glory,the football authorities needs to address the problems you highlighted in your well written post.
Our midfield these days aside the under 17s has been abysmal very appalling.
The nff should sit up and address this issue and make sure our coaches especially the youth ones travel far and wide to select the best players,i still think there are quality ball playing midfielders in Nigeria it all depends on the coaches to do a thorough search hoping there are funds too because this coaches could be starved of funds which could lead to selecting players as far as where the funds they have can take them.
Another factor could be coaches in charge having an eye for a good midfielder with a lot of flair.Coaches do have what they want in a midfielder,for instance a coach could prefer a player with power to one with flair,it could be the flair ones were dropped for power playing ones because of the stereotype African football is played with power,just an opinion though my assumptions could be wrong.
Very good points, Glory. Well said!
What is the essence of wing play without sound central midfielders? All mentioned countries and clubs above have sound midfielders that start something meaningful from the rare.
Eguavoen relegated the only manageable midfielder we had to the bench(Iwobi) with the mind to be introducing him to the wings around 70 minutes of play. Even Nwakali enjoyed game time than him at the cup of Nations. Only for Iwobi to come in against Tunisia and get red carded which eventually caused him to miss both matches against Ghana.
Can some one tell me what Ladan Bosso was busy working on through out that camping without having sound replacement for Daga. I hope they correct their mistakes against Egypt. As a die hard fan, I will be waiting to cheer them up if they do and if they don’t? I’ll also be here to condemn them as a Naija man wey I be.
Gone are the days that we easily switched from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 to 3-5-2 under Rohr. Though Rohr wasn’t the best in the world but trust me, he’s been better than all what our handlers has been throwing at us since he left.
Going back in time to the good ol’days our football origin was about flair, flexibility and skill originated by Otto Maria,perfected by Clemence Westerhof and Jo bonfere,it’s still a principle implemented by the likes of Siasia,Late Keshi and Finidi George but as time went on especially under the Pinnick era as Nff president we moved away from our identity due to our perceived lack of physicality and stamina especially after losing to south Africa in uyo,that was when both erstwhile eagles coach Gernot Rorh and the Nff technical committee decided to move to a more conservative approach which relies on counters but it was a negative approach,as time went on it became worse,the Nff in order to rejig the team by removing Rorh and replace him with Eguavoen who brought back an abandoned and obsolete tactical experiment that Sunday oliseh initiated before he left acrimoniously which was the 4-4-2 wingplay-esque style initially worked due to the talent we have on the wings but the key disadvantage of this system is the lack of midfield numbers(if only our fullbacks overlapped and inverted) which makes us very predictable especially against organized and deep lying teams.it was an utter failure which we(the fans) haven’t fully recovered from. Now Pinnick is gone(thankfully) and Gusau wants to rebuild our football,the onus is on the new technical committee to ensure that we rediscover our football identity and the best way to start is by revisiting the history books.