Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel admits he had change tactics during their Club World Cup triumph against Palmeiras.
He watched his side taken to extra-time when a Palmeiras penalty levelled up a Romelu Lukaku headed goal, but was spared the stress of a shoot-out to decide the contest when Kai Havertz made no mistake from the spot, with three minutes of the additional period left on the clock.
It was not lost on the boss that it was the second time a Havertz goal had decided a big final in Chelsea’s favour.
“It was not easy to shoot that penalty,” praised Tuchel.
“I’m happy that Kai stepped up and took it the way he took it. This can only be good for his development.
“Palmeiras were a typical South American team, very good individually,’ our head coach continued as he analysed the game as a whole.
“They had solidarity and discipline and sacrifice against the ball. They can defend, they can suffer and with everything together, we knew it can be difficult to create chances and half-chances and we had to be patient and relentless at the same time.
“Sometimes in a final it’s a bit stuck in the beginning, you look for solutions but you don’t want to open up to too many spaces for counter-attacks on which they heavily rely, and where they are very, very good. So in the first half we struggled a little bit with the fluidity of our match.
“We changed the structure in the second half,’ he revealed, ‘and found the spaces better and scored a wonderful goal and had two or three good chances or half-chances after that. Then in a moment where we were in total control and were the better team and seemed to find spaces better and better and to implement a higher rhythm, in this moment we gave a penalty away from a throw-on which is very unusual.”
From that point Tuchel said, the whole story started from scratch again, which he explained is mentally and physically difficult for the players.
“But I have to say we never stopped attacking, never stopped trying and for extra time we changed the structure again and had a different structure to attack and to defend counter-attacks. The team did very, very well in extra time to control the match completely and the guys from the bench had a huge impact.
“Of course if you have a late penalty you’re also lucky but I think we deserved it because we did not allow a lot of chances and we never stopped trying and never stopped being active and doing the most for the game.”
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COMMENTS
This is a world class coach who understands what a contingency plan can do! Not some DUMB ASS EGUAVON who’s one and only one pattern predictable wing play style cost us our 4th Afcon title..
“We changed the structure in the second half”
we changed the structure again and had a different structure to attack and to defend counter-attacks.
When it is was not going as plan tuchel change pattern twice in just one game o.But “your own” operated with one pattern from group stage to round of 16.Terrible!!
At least he had a pattern called wing play ,does failed rohr have anyone?he never had one,he came here and played anywhere Belle face football.eguavoen had 3 weeks to prepare the team,ur anywhere Belle face failed coach had 6 years.Egudiola will come good with the help of amunike who is technically better than Yusuf who is a quota system coach and a bribe taker,things will get better henceforth
Eguavon is the worst thing, Tunisia played exactly what Algeria played against us in 2019. Keep the ball away from them as much as you can and don’t allow wing play and Eguavon couldn’t learn from that and made the same mistake. How will he not when a coach will tell a winger to go and do his things without a better instructions. As a good coach when you see Tunisians marking Moses down, what you are supposed to do is simple: tell Moses Simon to keep passing the ball until you take the tinisians unaware and make sure the other wing is effective. Then when you try all this and no result, play 2 mieldfielders from left and right and 1 number 4, that’s it.
@Jide.Dola spot on
Na so..?! Na wa o.. Na your system be that abi..?
Nigerians sef, with them over sabi.. Lol
LMFAO! @Michel And the anywhere belle face football got us more achievement that we could wish for. LMFAO!
Before getting to the comment section, I knew if no one comes here to use Tuchel’s admission to run Cerezo down, you will. And for sure, you didn’t disappoint.
You have a very negative spirit, a divisive one at that. Save the match against Tunisia, tell me one thing Eguaveon didn’t do well at AFCON. if a coach could take up a demoralized team less than three weeks before a major competition, no friendly match, nothing whatsoever and secured three straight wins with some sublime football, but you think he still a total failure just because he didn’t perform like Chelsea coach, then you don’t have a fair soul.
Tuchel has been with Chelsea for months. His team trains everyday. The coach has always had the time to experiment with many tactical formations. He is very familiar with his players and their abilities. They know him too and what he wants them to do. They’ve mastered how to switch formations in the middle of a game and know the response to put up if their opponents come to them in certain ways. Thanks to many months and years of being together, many practice matches and training sessions.
Did Eguaveon have this luxury? Even if Mourinho had taken the team at the time and in the state Eguaveon did, would he have faired better? Disabuse your mind of hatred. You didn’t force NFF to keep Rohr for 5 years. And you won’t tell them when to tell him to go. Get life and start thinking with your head and not your foot.
A good coach doesn’t need to be with the team for years before we can see his impact on the team bro. Tuchel came in and his impact on Chelsea was felt instantly winning games after games and ultimately won the Champions league in 5 months with the same team Lampard struggled with.
Even Westerhof came in within a short time and took SE to a silver medal in 1990, Rohr came in 2016 and had an immediate impact decimating Zambia, Algeria and Cameroon en-route WC 2018. Did relatively well against strong teams like Croatia (WC Finalist) and Messi’s Agentina.
The same 2 or 3 weeks that Eguavoen had to train for AFCON is the same period that Rohr would’ve had to train them. Eguavoen has always been with this team for over 1 year as the technical Director so he knows the players very well prior to taking over as coach, so stop with all these flimsy excuses for failure.
Rohr is gone and nobody is asking for him to be recalled, what we are asking for is for NFF to give us a sound coach of which no single indigenous coach has the wherewithal qualities to tinker SE at the moment. Eguavoen has always been a failure in his active coaching career and we felt that he could do better after years of inactivity in the idle office given to him by his corrupt masters NFF? The result was a round of 16 exit in the same AFCON that we were a hot favourite to win, a monumental failure in our AFCON history.
Amuneke has nothing offer as he had been a perennial failure in senior football ever since he won the U-17 WC in 2015 so I don’t see why the hype here. NFF claimed they don’t have money to pay a sound coach but Millionnaires were busy promising millions of dollars should SE win AFCON but those millions were not available to prepare the team adequately with a sound coach to win the tournament. Nigerians love to just throw morning at will in the last minute forgetting that “he who failed to prepare must be prepared to fail”.
Ghana FA must be 10 times richer than Nff to be able to appoint a renowned ex EPL manager and a Dortmund assistant coach to steer their affairs in the WC Playoff. Bunch of useless administrators who are only interested in filling their pockets only……….Shio!!!
@Dr Banks only God will bless you my brother. Thanks for the reply. The same thing I had in my mind to reply him. But was thinking of the time and energy. It’s good to know that I have people with same bright minds.. I love you bro..
My brother don’t mind that Ode heavy one! Even if he decides to put it that it was because tuchel worked with his backroom staff that won him the CWC, I still want to let him know how stupid he is for thinking NFF did not provide Eguavon with every available support.
Westerhoff didn’t spend three weeks with the boys leading up to that silver medal winning performance at Algiers 90. Check your history book. As a matter of fact, he had the chance to qualify us for Italia 90 with just a draw against Cameroon but he failed. Even at Algeirs 90, his first match was disastrous after that 5-1 thumbing from Desert Warriors. If people like you were around then, I know you’d call for his immediate sack.
Things started coming together for Westerhoff after the second match in Algeria, and thats after some months he’d been with the team.
You can’t judge Eguaveon by that performance at AFCON. Many things were wrong going into that competition, from administrative blunders to player selections, club vs country issues and so many others. Yet, he came on board and we all wanted him to perform magic.. mehn…that’s unfair.
We didn’t even parade a full strength team. Osimhen missing that competition was like Mane and Sallah missing out for Senegal and Egypt respectively. Despite all these, he went on to defeat Egypt with some beautiful football, I mean the same Pharaohs that went on to reach the final. His team ended the group stage as the best team in the competition. Yes! He made a few mistakes in the game against Tunisia and this coupled with some questionable officiating and hard luck, cost us a
quarter final ticket. But that’s not enough to sack him. With more technical support and encouragement, he can give us a team we will all be proud of. Let’s learn appreciating our own. Aliou Cisse isn’t a Brazilian, Portuguese or Spanish coach, yet he gave his country the first AFCON title in their hsitory. I want to believe he’s learnt a lot in Cameroon and that will help him in his subsequent assignments.
@Papafem, Do you honestly believe it can be easy to get a draw in Cameroon when they needed all 3 points? Westerhof did his best with a 0:1 loss but didn’t fail, the failure came from the previous coach in the previous 5 matches in the group. Losing 1:5 to Algeria in the first match with a freshly assembled team missing several of our regular stars and then matching on to reach the final is a commendable feat and no one will call for a sack of the coach that pull off such miracle.
Same cannot be said of your Eguadiola who could not score against a weakened Tunisian team ravaged by Covid-19 but simply put the blame on luck. The many problems that happened pre-AFCON ’21 were all Eguavoen’s faults, poor selections and replacements, late release of 28-man list (it was only after Owngoal warned that the deadline for list release has been flouted before he hurriedly release it the next day after deadline date) all bcos he wanted to slot in 6 Homebase players plus Ndah and Nwakali.
Did you ever heard of club versus country row in releasing players during Rohr era? That is down to due diligence and knowing the rules and regulations to the letter. But here you have someone who has been a technical Director of football for over 1 year but very ignorant of the CAF’S rules guiding the competition please tell me what have we been paying him to do in the past years if he can’t sit on his table to study the CAF’S rule for few hours?
And please you guys should stop saying we played beautiful football in the group stage, we were all on the edge of our seats until the final whistle against Egypt, the referee turned a blind eye to an Ekong handball without VAR review, while he blatantly override the VAR review when Simon tripped Egyptian attacker in the box but non of you mentioned that the referee was biased by denying Egypt 2 penalties in that match. Then against Sudan and Guinea Bissau (true minnows) we could only manage some scrappy goals and you called that beautiful football?
NFF better do themselves a big favour by giving us a World class coach going into Qatar ’22 otherwise we shall be disgraced there. I don’t see Ghana beating us to qualify even if we don’t have a coach now, they are in way more crisis with dearth of quality players
No opinion is wrong, but my problem with @Monkey Post is why he keeps abusing and insulting Eguavoen? Why really? He didn’t steal from you, he didn’t do anything wrong to you, but each time there’s anything about coaching, you just turn on him and begin to abuse him. Let me ask you. If you come online and see people abusing and insulting your dad, how would you feel? How do you think his daughters will feel when they read this. The man hasn’t committed any crime, he only took a coaching job. Monkey Post, can you reduce the insults on the man? Under the same circumstances in 2006, he came home with a bronze medal. You celebrate a white man, but will run your own down and abuse the living day light out of him. Na wah shaa lol
@MonkeyPost is one of the dumbest men on earth we should be ignoring this idiot and before you know it he’s out of here. So many people need mental evaluation but they don’t know, Tuchel said “our head coach” what does that imply? It simply means he is not alone but this disgusting monkey who doesn’t understand the concept of the game will run up here to type trash. If anything sense should tell you that is why Amunike was appointed.
@Chima, you be confirmed Olodo, so you don’t know that csn copy and paste that news from Chelsea official website? But their editors are dumb like you until, they can’t do a simple editing before pasting. “our head coach” means the reporter termed himself as part of Chelsea family, that’s why he referred it like that.
Tuchel is head coach and manager of Chelsea, he only have backroom staffs.
My brother don’t mind that Ode heavy one! Even if he decides to put it that it was because tuchel worked with his backroom staff that won him the CWC, I still want to let him know how stupid he is for thinking NFF did not provide Eguavon with every available support.
Ola your father that impregnated your sick mother is a fool and a goat. Birds of same feather flock together like Ola like Monkey. MOFOS!!!
@Chima you are the biggest fool still living on this planet Earth. LMFAO! Oh! You are so pained because nobody is responding to your comments the way they do to mine because yours lacks wisdom and is full of shit! LMFAO!
Oh! I see that your brain that has been clouded by debris couldn’t tell you that Eguavon too did not work alone at the just concluded Afcon. LMAO!
Your dumb ass Eguavon worked with:
Salisu Yusuf (Chief Coach)
Paul Aiyegbogun (Assistant Chief Coach)
Joseph Yobo(Assistant Coach)
Dr. Terry Eguaoje (Assistant Coach) and Aloysius Agu (Goalkeeper Trainer).
ALSO
Former Nigeria captains, Augustine ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu and Garba Lawal were appointed to provide technical support for him aside him being a technical director for a over a year…
And At the end he still failed. LMAO!
You see When you are dull you are dull there is nothing that can be done about it. LMAO! Even if they like let them give you dozens of all the best hands to assist you! LMFAO!
With this your wisdom in tarnishing Nigeria officials, Eguavoen is now the coach of all coaches. Are you sure you are not mistaking noise making for wisdom?
@Caleb, an ewu can never have wisdom. He is a CSN forum nuisance who likes to arouse himself by making noise. FIFA recently placed Cerezo Eagles on 32nd position in the ranking. That is from 36th position.
Hahahaha. Alias OP, Please allow him to continue making noise.
How Palmeiras Forced Me To Change My Tactics –Tuchel
Despite the comments above remaining a monologue, coach Austin Eguavoen still heads Nigerian National Teams.
@Caleb, I wonder what he is still trying to express with his daily noise. He even had time to waste in typing lengthy molonogue and meaningless letters. While our officials and players are gaining recognition from the relevant quarters. God bless true Nigerians.
When you guys come here and call roah mechanic, grandpa roah, Volkswagen, old cargo etc. Who complained? Or it is okay because he is not a Nigerian Abi? Or you think his children doesn’t not come online to read all those insult too?
But come to think of it.. Why did you refer to only Eguavon daughters coming to read the bashing of their dad online and not his sons. Or Eguavoen gat no son? Hmm. I dey suspect you o…you didn’t even use an I.D.. LMFAO!
@Monkey Post, it’s amazing you actually think your comments reek of wisdom when all I see when you post is a child who has refused to grow up. I don’t blame you though, I blame the people giving you attention. Baba! Noise making and hurling hateful words at a man like he is the curse of your problems in life cannot be mistaken for wisdom. Grow up!
Thank you Oga @Linkin wey don grow up. Just know, I can never support that failure you call your own ..LMFAOO! I will continue to be a ROAH ass Licker LMFAO!!
Fine Amunike is there but your Mr nonsense will still be interfering saying he is Mr technical director. LMFAO! Technical director my ass!
I simply don’t know the crime of Eguaveon that all these morons won’t let us sleep. I’ve come to realize that this forum is full of benefit fans who sing hossanah today, crucify tomorrow. They don’t even know what it means to be a football fan. No spine, no clue, no life.
If Eguaveon starts winning tomorrow, they keep quiet. If he loses a single match, they rush here to condemn him. But if it’s their Rohr, win or lose, he gets the praise, as long as his colour is white.
If Egu had won the AFCON, you will hear stories like it isn’t his technical savvy that won the cup but the determination of the players. I’ve heard people say Keshi’s victory in 2013 wasn’t because he was good but because the players were determined to win it. May God deliver us from people like Monkey Post, who even with your 3/4 (75%) in an exam, you’re still a failure. Is that not what Eguaveon scored at the nation’s cup, winning 3 matches out of 4, and they still don’t consider him good enough?
@Papafem I wonder what kind of brain you get, mind you Eguavoen didn’t score 3/4 or 75% as you claimed. He attempted 4 questions out of 7 and got 3 right, so that gives him a score of 3/7 which makes it 42% and that’s a failure by all standards.
We didn’t go to Cameroon just to participate but to win something and to win anything you have to play 7 matches
Kai oil dey your head @Dr Banks!!! And even out of the 4 questions attempted Sudan and Guinea bissau na Sara questions. Tunisia was suppose to be a cheap question too but overconfidence made us to fail.
That’s very true my brother @Monkey Post
And you were expecting him to get 7/7 with just three weeks of practice? LMAO… Won’t the entire world, including yourself, be shocked if he had done that in all honesty? And by the way, would Rohr have won the cup if he had taken the team to Cameroon? The same Rohr whose team had started struggling against Central African Republic, Caoe Verde, and Serra Leone? Who told you we would have beaten Tunisia under Rohr, the same Tunisia he could not beat in a friendly match after 2019 AFCON.
Did your Rohr win 7/7 after three years in the saddle in 2019? If in your estimation and by the standard you set in the post above, Rohr did no wrong by wining a bronze medal in 2019, then Eguaveon should be free from your scathing remarks because he once won a bronze medal too as the coach of the team. He even had a better record at his first attempt, because he won more matches enroute to that bronze medal than your Rohr whose team got whipped by Madagascar in the last group match. What exactly has Rohr achieved in all the countries he coaches? Nigeria lifted him because the talents were available, unlike other nations he has worked. Having started well, compromise and sentiments set in and we were heading back to square one. He got the sack before things got really shameful, and all of you there won’t allow us rest as if he was the first person to be sacked as a coach. You all need to wake up from your nightmares because if you cry from till eternity, Eguaveon has nicked the job already and will leave only when we are no more comfortable with him.
Oga go and sit down with this your flimzy excuse of 3 weeks, 3 weeks. Haven’t you heard of instant/immediate impact/success that coaches bring
Even though not 7/7 at least 6/7 will do.. say winning silver. That’s reaching the final and maybe coming second..
At least Rohr won 5/7 which is 71%, now that’s a distinction if you know what success is.
Eguavoen on the other hand only won 4/6 (66%) in 2006 with arguably a team of superstars at their peak then. That team was very good enough for the cup but tactical deficiency let us down as well, same in 2022.
Algeria and Cote D’voire couldn’t beat Sierra Leone at AFCON ’22 and Cameroon couldn’t beat Cape Verde in front of their vociferous fans, so what’s the big deal? We still qualified ahead of S/L with 2 games to spare, and qualified ahead of Cape Verde and CAR………..that’s what is called effective management. Not a “Flash in the Pan” wins but stumbled when it mattered most
Rohr beat a fully fit Tunisian team that was in their peak at 2019 AFCON to win Bronze, drew twice with a make-shift team in a friendly but your Ogunefon couldn’t beat a depleted team whose full team could only manage a single win in the group stage qualifying only luckily with 3 points
My friend @Papafem, give up on this aggrandising attitude of yours and smell the coffee. Let’s face reality and agreed that NFF and Eguavoen messed up our chances at AFCON 2022 and we don’t want same to happen in the WC Play-off against Ghana
Chai @Dr Banks I love the way you are schooling @Papafem and co. keep it up please.
The probability that he will win it is very high even your NFF officials and the yeye minister knows that because that man has been pulling out results in difficult circumstances. Yes he struggled against Cape Verde, Seria Leone etc in your crusade pitch but Senegal also struggle during the first round in fact they only scored one goal in open play and didn’t play beautiful football but still went all the way to lifting the cup. Thought the NFF said they took the decision to avert danger and you are all saying it is the best decision then because of Nations cup, so why are you consoling yourself that he only took over the team for 2 weeks or saying you played beautiful football by winning the first 3 matches? How many month does it take Rohr to quality us from a group regarded as group of death after our team are being rejected by so many world class coaches saying the target is impossible?
Oga was that the agreement? Was going to the Afcon and scoring 75% or 3/4 the agreement? Or bringing the trophy home? Am so ashamed that some of you fans decided to sell out instead of us to stand with one voice..
What agreement, Mr Monkey. Did anyone tell you Eguaveon had a contract binding him to win the tournament? Someone that was entitled to just match bonuses , Just like his players? You should keep quiet and stop talking football.
@Papafem I expected you to be reading deep whenever these politicians that call themselves NFF officials make a statement. Stop all this shallow or surface reading..
@Papafem if you have any lawyer around you, you should ask.. Agreement must not only be written. There can be verbal or vocal which to me is an unwritten agreement..And also a statement can come in two ways direct or indirect.
Now what does the statement: we sack roah to prevent an impending disaster means? It indirectly simply means they kick him out to avoid any embarrassment of not bringing the cup home.
But instead you guys gave us a R16 exit which to me is heavy disaster!
And stop glorifying failure please. Which one is 3/4 or 75% call it R16 exit! So if your child wrote waec and comes out with 3 credits instead of at 5 or more. You will call it what? Or maybe wrote jamb and the cut off Mark is 250 and he score 75. Let’s be frank. What do you call it?
You guys got rid of GENERAL ROAH to avoid an impeding disaster as regards bringing the cup home and hired someone you feel could deliver. And now he failed, y’all are celebrating him because he is your own??
And for all of you guys praising Eguavoen for the rise in FIFA ranking from 36th to 32nd position, keep on jubilating over failure. Before the AFCON 2019 we were ranked 45th (14th June FIFA ranking) but jumped to 33rd by the end of AFCON 2019 (25th July FIFA ranking), that was a big jump worthy of celebration but rather you were all clamouring for Rohr to be sacked immediately post AFCON 2019.
However, now your own failed to cross round of 16 huddle but you praise him to highest heavens and rewarded him with a lot of encomiums and a big pat in the back……………e dey una body make you carry go hen!!!
Eh ehn, complete it. We didn’t only rewarded coach Austin Eguavoen with encomiums, we ensured he was appointed the Technical Adviser.
Caleb, you are spot on. LMFAO!
Ehyaa, he has been pushed to the corner so had to make noise to remain relevant in his warped mind, while our own continue to fill the importance slots.
He is forever bitter and can’t hide it, so he makes noise.
LMFAO! One demented coward that I already know is using fake I.D’s to get my attention. LMFAO! If you are man enough bring out your real self. LMFAO! But some people get time Sha. Child’s play… LMFAO!!!
Ehyaa Dofinone, he has started writing in few lines. It’s like he is full of wisdom.
Not only wisdom, It is possible he is prophet with no id.
Don’t talk like that pls, are you saying an animal has no ID?
For all those claiming that our recent FIFA ranking was due to Eguavoen effect. That is a bloody lie. FIFA did a ranking just before Nations Cup started and Nigeria was already ranked third best team in Africa then.
That same ranking done just before AFCON started and our position then was used to draft Ghana as our next opponent for the World Cup playoffs.
Eguavoen only maintained that ranking. Nothing changed. But Nigerian media including CSN publicized it as an Eguavoen achievement.
I dey laff
I maintain my position: in a country like Nigeria, with the kind of players God has blessed us with, 5 + years are enough for any coach to prove himself.
Westerhoff spent approximately the same number of years, if not less, and gave us an AFCON gold medal, AFCON Silver medal, a world cup ticket and number 5 in FIFA ranking. All we got from Almighty Rohr was a bronze medal and world cup ticket in 5 years. He is reputed to be the longest serving coach in Nigeria but that is all we have to show for it. I have to admit that Rohr is a good scout but not a good coach.
I can see one mumu called Monkey Post hailing open display of mediocrity. So Eguaveon’s Victories against Ghana (1-0), Senegal (2-1), Zimbabwe (2-0), Tunisia (6-5 pen) and Senegal (1-0 Third Place) and one loss against CIV at 2006 AFCON, makes his record 4/6 (66%) or 5/6 (83%). I can see; your mentor really “schooled us”.
It’s not late anyways. You can still take your case to the Senate and lobby for Pinnick’s appearance before the
Senate Committee on Sports to defend his organization’s decision to sack their employee. If that didn’t work, you can “talk” to Buharia to order Rohr’s recall and immediate sack.of your number 1 headache, Eguaveon.
@Papafem, so you don’t know that a penalty shootout is not statistically regarded as a win? You’ve got a lot more to learn about football maters my brother
Penalty shootout is not counted as a win, but you and your Mr Monkey counted three unplayed matches at 2021 AFCON as losses in order to hang Eguaveon. God will help you all.
As far as I’m concerned, Eguaveon has done nothing going by the circumstances sorounding his appointment and job in Cameroon. If he fails against Ghana, then we can begin to review his appointment again. Until then, we keep fingers crossed.
How many competition did Westerhoof participated and how many did Rohr? He only attended 2 competition and qualified for all competitions he coached us meanwhile westerhoof had 4 competitions and even lost out one of the qualifying. You guys are just shouting 6 years out of sentiment and hatred. The man used most of that over 5 years building the team for us effect of what we saw in Nations cup before our own bottled it with second round exit
5 years to build a team? If one uses 10 years to rehearse for madness, when will he practise the madness?
My dear brother, Rohr got it right at a point. We were very hopeful with the way he qualified us for WC. Even after we got eliminated in the 1st round, I vehemently supported his stay. When Algeria beat us at 2019 AFCON. I strongly kicked against his sack. I believed he had a good team that would soon get better . Against Ukraine and Brazil, I was impressed with what the team put up.
However, I was expecting the SE to march forward
from theree because another AFCON and WCQ Series were in the corner. We should be seeing a Nigerian team that has consolidated on the initial success. But what did we get? We started struggling against every team, big or small. Our match against Cape Verde in Lagos was the most scary; thank God for that final block by Ndidi, otherwise, we won’t be talking of playing Ghana by now. And that’s after 5 years of tinkering the team. Rohr seemed lost tactically. I must say.
No one could even say this was our first 11 under this man after 5 years. So, when exactly would he finish building?
We had started panicking whenever the team came up against any team, big or small. Going away to CAR and SL, no one was sure of what to expect. We sat on the edge of our seats throughout the match against CV.
Arh!!!! That’s not good at all. Rohr simply had to go. It’s not as if I have 100% confidence in the new technical crew, but they’ve shown some promise, despite the loss against Tunisia. Again, a lot of players will return to the team for the qualifiers, players who could have made a lot of difference if they were in Cameroon. I believe Osimhen could have converted some of the chances wasted by Awoniyi and Sadiq against Tunisia, and Balogun could have helped organize that defence better than it was, not forgetting Etebo’s energy in the midfield in those crucial moments.
My only problem with those attacking Eguaveon is I can’t understand the basis of their attack. The man didn’t put himself there. And no matter how hard we shout, he’s there, and there already. It’s now left for him to prove himself. Otherwise, he will go the way of Rohr.
Well, Rohr is gone and gone for good so I guess we move on with life without Rohr. Be that as it is, Rohr did a good job with SE and we should give him credit for a job well done, picking a team the world tagged Super Chickens due to repeated failures in AFCON qualification and turning things around with his excellent organizational and human management skills within a short period to qualify us for the world cup, all I can say at this point is thank you Rohr and I wish you the best in your future aspirations.
Eguavoen seemed to have started on a good note with three wins out of three until that loss to Tunisia, hence some have questioned his technical ability, same way we questioned Rohr’s technical ability.
The 4 4 2 approach for me is one that a coach must deploy with a lot of caution and that is if he must use that approach at all. The 4 4 2 is a very easy approach to understand for players, requires skillful players (attack minded wingers) that can execute a good number of take-ons early in the game to create spaces and scoring opportunities.
The downside of the 4 4 2 approach is the fact that it leaves a team with a porous midfield when they lose posession while attacking, hence exposing the defence and goalkeeping departments to occassional but dangerous threats. This has made many cautious coaches to either dump the flamboyant 4 4 2 for other cautious formations like 4 3 3 or 3 5 2 or cautiously deploy 4 4 2 with the intention of changing the formation during a match if things aren’t working as planned.
At the AFCON, the 4 4 2 worked fine for us in the first round due to obvious reasons; The SE was totally unpredictable against Egypt cuz we had a new coach whose philosophy was almost unresearchable as he hasn’t coached at a high level in over 10 years. Prior to that match, the SE had mostly deployed a 3 5 2 formation under Rohr and only deployed 4 3 3 against seemingly weaker oppositions. The 4 4 2 approach looks outdated to me, cuz it’s been ages that I saw any national team deploy that. I stand to be corrected in this regard please.
The only clue the Egyptians would have had on Eguavoen’s 4 4 2 approach prior to that match was that table soccer analysis Eguavoen did on YouTube, but it seems the Egyptians didn’t get that memo/expo, hence our flamboyant display and well deserved win against them.
Sudan and Guinea Bissau are obviously weaker oppositions without any major attacking threat to the SE, hence our flamboyant 4 4 2 continued to pilot us on.
Come-in a Covid 19 ravaged but technically superior Tunisian squad and our flamboyant 4 4 2 failed the test of time. Unlike the Egyptians, the Tunisians got the memo/expo, the SE had become predictable, the Tunisians planned not just to frustrate the 4 4 2 approach, but to also capitalize on its downsides. This plan was executed with precision and the rest is history.
The intentions of the Tunisian bench was clear for all to see from the onset, but our dear Eguavoen stuck to his guns until the final whistle, making like for like substitutions and doing same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result. On the few occasions that the Tunisians ceased the ball while we attacked, their transition from defence to attack was done speedily, hence that goal early in the 2nd half, another save by Okoye minutes later and a few other shots that went off target.
This isn’t meant to cast aspersions on Eguavoen’s abilities, but from my perspective it leaves more to be desired of him.
A round of 16 exit in AFCON for the SE is a total failure for me even if it is Senegal that knocked us out. As far as the AFCON is concerned a semi-final berth is as good as a birth right for the SE.
Going forward, we can only hope that our dear Eguavoen has picked the technical and administrative lessons from this below average AFCON performance and we wish the SE well in the world cup qualifiers.
@Harry Ebuewei, finally he has chosen a human ID but would’ve in the least simply summarize the “Afcon blueprint”. Hasn’t he tried?
Tried wetin? We are having playoffs in March and not qualifiers. Besides, Cerezo has gone forward in implementing the Belgium Blueprint, evaluating our domestic league. Guy, I dey work, later abeg.
@Papafem,
Nigerians promoted Eguavoen to the position of the Technical Adviser irrespective of his Afcon21 performance, having in mind that he had a short time, 2 weeks(not 5 years) to prepare the team. That doesn’t seem like an attack.
I hope you are not mistaken the feeling of his doubters who haven’t been able to stomach the fact that FIFA, the World Football Governing Body, still recognized the Eguavoen led Super Eagles even after Afcon by moving SE from 36th to 32nd position in its ranking.
Nigerians believed if given 6 years like Rohr, Eguavoen is capable of winning not just Afcon gold but the World cup.
Going forward, let’s continue to think Nigeria first and be contented with our local managers now that they have started implementing the Belgium Blueprint.
@Pius Obemen, I also saw the nonsense he wrote out there, na small pikin dey worry am. You see, they are used to attack upon attack in his regeon that is why everything to him is attack. I don’t know what he is profiting from exposing his triba people to a wholesome occupation/bad news. He cannot hide his disappointment that is why he is masking the noise differently. Egu is leading our national team for the next 8 years or there about. God bless Nigerians.
Very charismatic and to the point. I like your response @Pius Obemhen. I feel Coach Eguavoen would need more than two weeks for sane minds to begin assessment of his performance.
@Mahmud am so baffled over your jubilation of Eguavon winning only bronze in 2006 with the most talented SE squad that this country will ever produce. LMFAO! i.e Peter odewinge, Obagoal, kanu, Yobo, Aghahowa, Nsofor, taye taiwo, chidi odiah, utaka, Okocha, enyama, Obodo, Oruma, Obi etc With those talents, other coaches would have won the nation’s cup, and then go to the world cup and claim bronze at least. LMFAO!