Super Eagles interim head coach Austine Eguavoen says poor officiating by centre-referee Maguette Ndiaye contributed to his side’s defeat to Tunisia on Sunday, reports Completesports.com.
The Super Eagles were eliminated from the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations following a 1-0 defeat to the Carthage Eagles in their second round clash.
Eguavoen’s side were reduced to 10-men in the second half after substitute Alex Iwobi was sent off for a poor tackle.
“Iwobi’s red card, I don’t think it was,” Eguavoen said during his interaction with the media after the game.
“It was the first foul, and it wasn’t intentional, but we have to look at the VAR later and see.”
“However, first offence, I don’t think it was a red card. It was not a dangerous play.
“The boys fought hard, the officiating wasn’t fair.”
The Super Eagles will now shift their attention to the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against eternal rivals Ghana following their exit from the competition following their exit from AFCON 2021.
By Adeboye Amosu in Garoua
21 Comments
That’s true the red card is too harsh while the Tunisia no 23 was dragging iheanacho like his life depends on it and the official intercepted our ball and he didn’t stop play and the Tunisia where on a counterattack. And the car didn’t give the hand ball a clear penalty. But it’s not enough for the match to be replayed
Very terrible officiating the VAR was Set to hurt US and any other direct rivals to Cameroon. Okoye too need to make way he’s not worth it.
We even had a penalty that was overlooked. A Tunisia defender had his hand on the ball, I think it was Ekong that raised an alarm which wasn’t strong enough to call for the VAR. In all, you all tried. Good luck.
Even the commentators were making the penalty call but all in vain.
High time Eguavoen is made the SE coach on permanent basis.
In Nigeria, winning = a good coach
No it was not poor officiating, instead he the coach simply did not had a second strategy to the Tunisians. The Tunisians nullified our wingers by putting two men each on them and sat back while waiting for a chance to hit us from the middle. Cerezo with his experience with the SE both as a player and coach should know the Tunisians always like to play through the midfield and they will dominate it, this has been from the 1970s (from my own experience watching them play our club sides and SE) Having two midfielders and two wide forwards or wingers is already playing to their advantage. The selection was no good.
I wish he did no resign and he can continue. But that is left for Amaju and co to decide.
God bless you Kim. You nail on the head. That was the problem. Coach Eguavoen should have known better.
Lastly, we shouldn’t rely on Amaju to make a decision because he doesn’t believe in our own instead, he will go bring another incompetent foriegn coach to be in charge during the world cup qualifiers and it may backfire. Our own should continue the job. God bless Nigeria!!!
It would have backfired if he had hurriedly change tactics because that would have opened him up at the quarter, semi and finals. It was ok for him not to panic, the changes he made would have paid off but for the red card Iwobi got. We could have equalised even with a man down if our players were a bit more Tactical and matured in their play. The midfieders lacked the skill to lob the ball behind our opponents defence line for our attackers to latch on,just like what Sunday Oliseh used to do , our wingers concentrated on one approach- dribbling into the opponents 18 which to me was nonsensical, a complete winger is that player who pulls in crosses into and around the 18 & 6 yard boxes to unsettle our opponent’s defenders and create chances for our strikers to score. We couldn’t score via free kicks /corner kicks. so there is a whole lot of team work and training they need to do. Finally, our goalkeeper trainer should be sacked and bring in Peter Rufai or the guy that got sick and Okoye should be made to stay on the bench and learn, he is not good enough to be our 1st choice, Alapasu should be brought in to join other goalkeepers while Uzoho leads the line.
More so, that red card shown to Iwobi was justified. A replay showed iwobi stepped on the Tunisian with his boot raised. We may say a little hash by the referee, but justified.
Oga blame it on your poor coaching approach. Sometimes a coach that goes into a game with a good technical and tactical approach can beat/outsmart any bad/poor officiating on the side of the referee..
We must also take note of the fact that, the coach had only few hours to prepare the team.
AFCON: Like pigeons, Eagles touched by Buhari refused to fly – Shehu Sani
I can’t help but laugh it out loud.
Buhari!
If he was given more time, obviously something better would have happened, may be the cup self. Let’s just keep moving on while waiting on the football federation to appoint a coach.
Everything was going well for the Eagles before the 2nd round matches as a matter of fact they don’t have business losing the match. I will count the advantage we had over Tunisia.
Firstly, we played all our group matches as the same stadium so we don’t have to travel to another city which should be an advantage as compared to the Tunisians
Secondly we had 1 more day to rest ahead of the Tunis as we played our last group match before them
Also, they had a weak squad or should i say limited option going to the match due to covid 19 issues they have in the team
Lastly Eagles were brilliant throughout the group stages and that should have put them in right frame of mind going into that match with confidence unlike Tunisians that lost their last match. Losing 2 out of 3 is not a good record but in the end they get the job done.
With all this being said, the Refree decision to send off Iwobi is too harsh. A yellow card is enough bcos atleast his leg touch the ball first and their could be claim that his leg slide from the ball to match the guy not as if he stood on the guy foot like the one Aina did that resulted to penalty. If not for that i believe the SE would have force that match into extra time and finish them off.
From my point of view the Eagles didn’t impose themselves on the Tunisians throughout the first half which show on our stat. Not even a single shot on target. Immediately the 2nd half resume he should have opted to 3 5 2 formation in other to load the midfield or rather 4 5 1. I believe the coach had learnt his lesson and for poor Okoye who couldn’t save that shot, it’s really disappointing. No deflection, yet he couldn’t keep the ball away from the net
Anything buhari touches turns to dust(bad luck)…….woe onto whoever organized that conference call with buhari before the match.
Oga, leave politics for politicians. This one na football matter. we lost to a better side.
Bring Rhor back immediately with Amuneke and Eguavon to join in .
I do not know if anyone from NFF reads these comments otherwise this comment is for NFF to implement.
Anytime Nigeria has major tournament, interaction with the Players should be restricted to Coaching Staff and all those that have something to do with the Team. The idea of exposing the Team to all sorts of visits by Politicians and business Moguls who make all sorts of promises to the Team should be discouraged. These visits and promises put additional pressure on the Team thereby making them nervous and tendency to lose focus.
These visits and promises can be made after the Tournament. Also the media hype after winning one or two matches should be avoided. The team was carried away by these media hypes after winning their 3 group matches without a loss. You can understand why it was Tunisia who qualified from their group on three points as best losers would be the one to knock out Super Eagles who qualified without losing a match. My problem is that we don’t learn from our mistakes and if the same opportunity presents itself next time we keep on making the same mistakes.
I agree 100%, but dem no go hear word. We are run like a circus in Nigeria. and you don’t see other Countries doing such medicore things