The home-based Super Eagles lost 1-0 to Senegal in their opening fixture at the 2024 African Nations Championship in Zanzibar on Tuesday night. Completesports.com’s ADEBOYE AMOSU appraises the performance of the players in the game…
Lawal Mustapha 4/10
The Shooting Stars shot stopper was at fault for the only goal conceded by Nigeria in the game.
Sodiq Ismaila 5/10
The right-back put up a solid display at the back but offered little going forward.
Junior Nduka 5/10
The captain was cautioned in the first half. He organised his defence well, but couldn’t do anything with the goal conceded by his side.
Leonard Ngenege 6/10
Unlucky to be on the losing side. The centre-back gave a good account of himself.
Taiwo Abdularafiu 4/10
A tough evening for the left-back, who was replaced by Uzondu Harrison in the second half.
Tochukwu Michael 4/10
Picked a yellow card in the fifth minute, and struggled to get going in the game.
Read Also:CHAN 2024: Super Eagles B Lose 1-0 To Senegal In Opening Group Match
Akanni Qudus 4/10
A poor display from the midfielder. He was replaced by Vincent Temitope 10 minutes from time.
Adedayo Olamilekan 4/10
He featured for the entire duration of the game. Olamilekan failed to make much impact in the game.
Jabbar Malik 4/10
The player started the game brightly but fizzled afterwards.
Anthony Ijoma 4/10
Toiled hard to impress in the game but failed to rescue his side from defeat.
Sikiru Alimi 3/10
He had a disappointing outing. The forward was replaced by Anas Yusuf late on.
Substitutes
Uzondu Harrison 3/10
Took the place of injured Taiwo Abdularafiu in the second half. He was booked late in the game.
Shola Adelani 3/10
The substitute failed to make much impact following his introduction.
Temitope Vincent 3/10
Another substitute, who failed to influence the game.
Anas Yusuf
Not Rated
Godwin Obaje
Not Rated
5 Comments
Complete sports was so unforgiving in the ratings. Na so them bad? After all the mouth wey them make?
No wonder Deo dey always say too much talk no dey full basket.
Chelle don finally spoil e unbeaten record. Leave team B for your assistant, maybe NFF said no because they want to by fire by force impose home based players in the main Eagles.
Coaches wey dey avoid them with a long pole since no get sense abi?
Chelle, sorry oh. E get why we no dey do well for CAF Continental tournaments.
Nigeria’s best are either abroad or in the academies. This was a poor representation of Nigeria’s football. I mean, even I could do better with some ball trapping and composure when passing the ball.
These basic skills let them down and had them losing the ball every 10 to 30 seconds. I couldn’t recall any ball possession that last a whole minute before losing it.
I feel for Chelle though. There’s a reason NPFL teams have been obscured in CAF competitions. This team should have been left to Ogunmodede and Ilechukwu only, while Chelle is left to focus on the main Super Eagles cos of the indirect psychological effect.
We have 2 super important fixtures early September. We don’t have time. Is it from CHAN he’ll be coordinating things?? Except they’re knocked out early, which won’t be a surprise.
Maybe we should stop participating in CHAN until we fixed our talent drain in the NPFL or we focus on picking players from the academies, change participation rules to any player playing on the continent, and not just in their home league.
Otherwise, I don’t even understand the relevance or logic of a CHAN competition. 90% of the team that qualified this team have abandoned the team. That’s why the best teams with their best talents abroad struggle while teams with a good number of home talents will play with flair.
……Otherwise, I don’t even understand the relevance or logic of a CHAN competition. 90% of the team that qualified this team have abandoned the team.
@Kel
Couldn’t have stated it better.
For me, CHAN is baseless. It hasn’t done much to improve the ‘original team A’ of National teams in the continent. Less to none break into the main team of the national teams. The status quo still remains. It’s done minimal for the leagues. Even the best of legs in the continent, jet out to better climes, pre, during and post competition. So, what’s the POİNT of it all? Majority on the continent don’t even know it’s being played, nonchalant or worst yet, care less about it. I bet most can list the past winners.
We should be putting all effort in improving the African Champions league rather than wasting time to this irrelevancy called CHAN.
Even if necessary for national teams, I rather we create a competition like the Nations league (as done by the Europeans and Concaf). Teams are placed in diverse groups according to their FİFA rating and there is relegation and promotion. Such can be played during the FİFA breaks used for friendlies. It would give more meaning to the international matches, give room to trying out more players and building team cohesion. That will exponentially drive more interest and development.
This is far better than playing a CHAN competition no one really cares about and brings no development .
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I GET SO FRUSTRATED WHEN EX INTERNATIONALS WHO HAVE SIDE INTEREST AND SOME NIGERIAN MEDIA OUTLETS CLAMOUR FOR THESE USELESS PLAYERS IN SUPER EAGLES MAIN TEAM FOR IMPORT CRUCIAL FIXTURES THIS HAS BEEN THE BAINE OF NIGERIAS PROBLEMS OF LATE WHY FINIDI FAILED US INCLUDED THESE PLAYERS IN THAT CRUCIAL BENIN REPUBLIC GAME HEEDING TO HIS GODFATHERS PRESSURE, GO AND INVESTIGATE THE GAMES WE FAILED IT WAS THESE LOCAL SKEW LEGS THAT DESTROYED OUR PERFORMANCE EITHER BY NOT BEING ABLE TO GIVE IMPORTANT CROSSES OR MAINTAIN POSITIONING OR BRINGING THE OVERALL STANDARD OF THE TEAM DOWN IN CRUCIAL POINTS IN CRUCIAL GAMES WHEN WE COULD CALLED UPON BETTER PLAYERS FROM ABROAD WHO WERE LEFT OUT OF THE SQUAD FOR HOMEBASED PLAYERS DUE TO PRESSURE fROM SO CALLED EX INTERNATIONALS AND CLUELESS PuNDITS BASED IN NIGERIA
Though I didn’t see the game live but wasn’t totally surprised with the poor performance of the players from the reactions in the comment section.
The team’s display last night, which has drawn a lot of reactions and criticism is a clear reflection of the poor state of our league, which many observers have pointed out time after time.
While many would take a swipe at Eric Chelle being the man in the saddle, and blame him for the loss and the poor performance of the team yet it’ll be preposterous and delusional to expect him to manage a cohort of depleted side against a well organised Teranga Lions of Senegal who I believe won the tournament the last time out.
An average Nigeria football fan is overly optimistic and want nothing less than a victory but in the case of this CHAN Eagles , they need to be cautiously optimistic. A number of players who qualified this team to the tournament has been declared missing and ineligible weeks to the competition, the likes of Isaac Saviour, Philip Adejoh, Papa Daniel Mustapha and Waliu Ojetoye have all been declared ineligible to feature for the Super Eagles B after they went out of the country to seek greener pastures abroad thus leaving a depleted squad hence a need for reinforcement of the squad with new players.
The quality of display which we’ve seen from the league in recent time, even though we must admit some progress in some quarters, however has not inspired much confidence and this is quite evident in the general performances of our clubs on the continent – African Champions League…
This goes without saying that some of Nigerian best football talents might not be in the Nigerian football professional league, NPFL after all. For Nigeria to harness her football potential, she needs to look up to the football academies spread across the country as well as the streets. It’s a surprise that that most of the homegrown talents playing abroad in the Super Eagles in recent years and now were products of football academies in the country, the likes of Mikel Obi, Victor Osimhen, Chukwueze, Arokodare, Paul Onuachu, Frank Onyeka, just to name but a few.
From the forgoing, it’s crystal clear that the NPFL is not serving the purpose of the senior national team and this put to pay the clamouring for the inclusion of home based professionals.