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Super Eagles midfielder, Alex Iwobi has appealed to Nigerians to forgive the team after their elimination from the ongoing 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
The Everton star made this known via his official instagram handle on Tuesday, where he promised that the team will bounce back from their defeat against Tunisia in the round of 16.
Iwobi was shown a red card during the match after receiving two yellow cards while Goalkeeper, Maduka Okoye was guilty of letting Msakni’s drive get past him.
He wrote: “Moments of joy can quickly turn into pain and anguish. As much as it’s a part of football, we came for more.
“Our fans who shared these moments with us both in Cameroon and across the world deserved more!
“The beauty of the game is the next moment of jubilation is never too far around the corner.
“We will be back to fight for our nation, stronger. We owe it to you, and I owe it to myself. Thank you for all the words of support & encouragement – it doesn’t go unnoticed.”
21 Comments
You have no reason to apologize to anyone, we are proud of you all. Our prayer is having you playing together in subsequent matches. Good luck S.E, God bless you.
We have accepted ur apology cos this things do happen often in football. That said still stand by my word, till they kingdom come it wasn’t a straight red cos you were not going for a tackle. You were with the ball. The Tunisia guy was the tackler. Unfortunately his foot went under ur stud. It wasn’t intentional at all but being that the referee from Senegal was out to substrate Nigeria he took advantage and made a mill of it. It’s wrong to allow a referee from a rival country officiate a match. This is the Politics NFF should have played better. A refer from East or south will have done far better. I’m not blaming any of our players or coach but the referee cos I know that if not for the red Nigeria will have equalize and beaten Tunisia. Nothing special about them. Bokina will certainly Expose them cos I except them to come out and play normal football
Four four two… Exactly. How can we be hoping to face Senegal when we move ahead at some point and a Senegalese referee is brought for our game… NFF should have protested for a change because Senegal won’t want opponents that will thwart their cup ambition…
Pinick knows these things but that man no the pill any weight for CAF… He claimed to be amongst the key players who brought Motsepe on board CAF as president but he is there like an idiot. Senegal will prefer to play any North African country than Nigeria…
AFCON has lots of politics and our administrators know that. I doubt if Nigeria even get a single linesman for that tournament not to talk of referee. We just be sleeping giant in every way. We have seen infringements worse than Iwobi’s own go unpunished. It’s well…
This is a valid d point you made @JimnyBall. I mean, it was like the referee couldn’t hide his intention, screening all our movements with a fine toothcomb and waving off Tunisia’s. Even Ndidi almost picked a fight with him. I enjoy refs from Ethiopia, Mauritius, Djibouti, Mozambique and all these non heavyweights. They have little or no vested interest.
Politics, politics everywhere, while Pinnick is just representing himself and his pocket.
– Hayatou played politics for almost 2 decades, gifting Caneroun 2 dubious Afcon wins.
– Ahmad came and disorganized the qualifiers, to ensure Madagascar qualified in 2019.
– Motsepe has even upped the zonal qualifiers game so powerhouse West Africa can take each other out
– Selection of refs is politics. Pinnick became dumb. Knock stage countries should not have refs at the stage.
I disagree with you on Iwobi’s red card. Remember that the 1st intention of the referee was to either give a yellow card or no card at all. He was directed by the VAR officials to go and look at the tackle again. So, that was not really the referee’s making. Iwobi had the ball but he lost it by lackadaisically trapping it. The way he trapped the ball made it (the ball) move away from him. At that point it became a 50 – 50 ball situation. He raised his stud (in an attempt to retrieve the ball) and that caught the Tunisian player on his ankle.
If he had missed the player, he still could have escaped with a yellow. But there was an impact on the Tunisian player’s ankle. It is the act and effect of that act that was judged (though from all indications, it was not an intentional tackle by Iwobi). We have seen players in FIFA competitions and even in the Premiership given straight red card for similar offence.
The lesson is that all players have to be very careful and not be reckless in this day and age of football because there is always going to be VAR around to judge every play.
On a different note, I think Iwobi’s form has dipped. He is not even in the starting 11 of Everton and he would not have displaced any midfielder in the eagles first 11 if Eguavoen had opted for a 3-man midfild players. He needs to work on fully regaining his form.
Alexander Iwobi the flop. Lolzzzz we are starting to see the same club Iwobi for Nigeria. This guy is an overrated average flop. Lolzzzz Heaven bless Iwobi and all deserving Super Eagles flops.
@Igbekun Abo or whatever your name Is, please how is Alex Iwobi the flop. The Aribo that was played in his position did far worse in terms of ball distribution during our four matches at AFCON.
Aribo couldn’t even live up to the expectations of others. Even the so called wonder kid imported from Segunda Division could not spark during training talk less of the match again Guinea.
You guys should just shut Up Abeg. Iwobi is still the best playmaker till date we have. Argue with your brains.
Aribo neither played in Iwobis position nor played as a play maker. Aribo played as a box-box midfielder and he delivered. He had assists and covered grounds very well.
With 10 men against 11, he was still everywhere. Go watch all the matches again.
The guys played well but the match day tactics didn’t just work out.
You have just rehashed what I said in another form. Aribo being a box to box midfielder could not effectively distribute balls. He was intercepting opposing players effectively by plugging holes in their play.
However, he could not creatively pass the ball to the attackers or use his passes to break the defence of the opposing teams.
This is very distasteful @Igbekun Abo. Is this supposed to be a criticism or vile attack on a very humble and important player?
Despite his Everton form, he keeps getting invite from all coaches – From Rohr to Eguavoen to Paseiro (I’m sure) and playing in the heart of the team? Even Benitez was always selecting him, yet he’s been sacked. Does that not say something? Was he playing Iwobi in the best position?
If Iwobi had played the rest of that match, there’s no way Tunisia would have won. The few minutes he was in, we saw the life he brought in. But he was eager to make a difference given the limited time and trailing.
Let’s know the difference between constructive criticism and outright attack on a great patriot who’s always given us joy, scoring important goals against Zambia (home and away), England, Argentina etc.
Abi o how is it his fault?. We all saw the kind of energy and pace he brought to the game before the unfortunate incident. The combination of Iwobi,Aribo and Ndidi should have been used in that match but our “own” knows better and that is why we are out. Iwobi go back to your club train hard get your shirt back now that you have a new coach and come back stronger.
Some people just no get sense, a guy is apologising you are saying he is a flop. Don’t criticize players when you know you can’t do better than him
Ndidi, Aribo and Iwobi from start. That’s the combination that would have done the job for us and we would have progressed. But Mr. Pour and Play, continued doing the same thing and expected the same results
IMOH Iwobi has no blame in the red card issued to him, it was an accidental tackle with no intension of harm whatsoever, VAR slow motion was responsible for the decision to award him a red card because watch the playback in slow motion makes it look like he deliberately stamped his foot on the guy’s ankle. We are all humans and a split seconds decision will always have it’s pros and cons.
Hard luck against us but never the faults of both the referee or Iwobi, it was destined to happen so we move on
However I sincerely hope the NFF will learn a thing or two in all these, particularly the whole drama that started with the announcement that Rohr will be sacked to this undeserved elimination of my dear SE from a tournament in which they are clear favourites to win.
Awoniyi was never in the game.
The referee as huge part I blame him for not sticking to his yellow card decision and even in the first half Nigeria appealed for a handball inside the Tunisian eighteen yard box and he overlooked it even after replay VAR failed to call play back that is that yeye VAR that’s full of North Africans.
I never trusted Awoniyi I haved echoed it so loud here even before the tournament started rather I was chastised by his admirers.
Going to a tournament of this magnitude you need a striker that would guarantee you goals especially when the chips are down.
Awoniyi led the line in our failed Olympic play-offs I saw how impotent and wasteful he was upfront and knew we may just kiss the Olympics goodbye.We did.
Another competition in the offing a much bigger one and Awoniyi in line to lead the attack and I said not again.
I knew what was coming my voice reverberated throughout the four corners of my room it was no surprise the outcome,another sad moment for our football sad indeed.
God bless you forever n ever ALEXANDER THE KING IWOBI. THE MAJORITY OF FANS ETERNALLY APPRECIATE THE JOY YOU AND THE REST SE PLAYERS BRING TO MILLIONS OF NIGERIANS. WE CANT FORGET THOSE BETTER DAYS. WHO GOD HAS BLESSED, NO ONE CAN CURSE. YOU ARE A BLESSED SON OF NIGERIA N YOUR PARENTS. You have no need to apologize to anyone. Always behind you fam. Love and ever proud of you and all others. We lose today to win tomorrow. ONCE AGAIN GOD BLESS TO ALEXANDER THE KING IWOBI AND GOD BLESS TO THE VERY HUMBLE MADUKA OKOYE. ITS ONLY A GAME OF FOOTBALL N NOTHING MORE.
Awoniyi is not bad. You don’t judge a striker solely by goals. If he is not scoring, is he adding value to the team? It is only when a player is not scoring or adding value to the team that you can say he is bad. Infact, even if a player is scoring but he is not adding value generally to the team, he won’t be rated. Awoniyi is always hustling and keeping our opponent defenders busy. So goal or no goal, you can’t hear me complain about him. If Onuachu and Sadiq can hustle and bustle like him, you will never hear me complain about them. Sadiq is very awkward and keep falling down easily like a new born baby. The same with Onuachu
It was the idiot Tunis that went into iwobi’s boot knowing fully well he can’t win such ball. And the fool still continue the game. Those bombastic element called referee are killed the game
Does the red card mean that iwobi is out of the world cup qualifier against Ghana?
YES HE IS OUT. HE WILL NOT PLAY.