3rd Place match of the ongoing U-20 AFCON going on in Niger featuring the Flying Eagles of Nigeria vs South Africa.
Live Blogging- U-20 AFCON 3rd Place Match; Nigeria Vs South Africa
3rd Place match of the ongoing U-20 AFCON going on in Niger featuring the Flying Eagles of Nigeria vs South Africa.
9 Comments
Another goalless draw, this team is begging for significant overhaul because if the flying eagles are finding it difficult to score at this level, then what are they going to do in poland.
If I’m NFF president. I would just sack thus coach straight. The coach that goal throughout the competition is to be part of the last four and not the trophy. What a worst outing in the history of Nigeria football.
If I’m NFF president. I would just sack this coach straight. The coach that his goal throughout the competition is to be part of the last four and not the trophy. What a worst outing in the history of Nigeria football.
Why are we trying to paper the cracks? Let’s hit the nail on the head: THIS TEAM IS CRAP! That’s the simple, cold truth.
No intelligent interchange of passes upfront. No spark. Very predictable attacking moves. Very blunt. Very average. If NFF is trying to present this totally un-Nigerian Under-30 “Flying Eagles” team in Poland, the disgrace will be a record – scorelines like 1-8, 0-6 losses. Already they have set a new record in reverse — the first time Nigeria is not finishing in the top 3 in an Under 20 Afcon tournament.
And what is it with names like Al-Zaruma, Nafizi, Alhassan, Abubakar, Jamil, Nurudeen everywhere? Something is definitely fishy. Is Buhari the Assistant coach? Cos he’s the only one who doesn’t think there are other competent people outside his state or region. Who’s the assistant coach? I think he picked this team on a suspicious basis. This team was not picked on merit!!!
NFF, disband now and sack the coaches.
Another dominant display without an end product. Just as the match against Mali, Nigeria registered stats that doubled that of their opponents, but couldn’t break them down.
Shots Nigeria 20/SA 3, On target Nigeria 4/SA 0, Possession Nigeria 64%/SA 32%, Passes 548/SA275, Pass accuracy Nigeria 82%/SA 54%.
What this suggests is that the attack (from Attacking midfielder to wingers and strikers) needs sharpening. For all the possession and shots, if we cannot break open South Africa and Mali, then we will have problems.
HOWEVER!! With the team going to welcome some players who will have to be released by their European clubs for the world cup proper, this tournament has shown where needs tweaking.
I do hope there will be positive reinforcements. If not, this team and the coach will bring us total disgrace when they get to Poland.
I won’t even bother watching the world cup if we are going to use the same team and coach. If the NFF will not show total commitment to success, why should I waste my precious time cheering them? After all, they get paid for playing but I don’t get paid for watching and cheering. Hiss, hiss, hiss!
Coach Aigbogun and his boys have yet again failed to silence critics with a performance sorely lacking in end product that has come to characterise their overall conduct in this competition as they lost to South Africa in today’s third place play-off to come back home empty handed.
For all their domination in key stats, as was the case when they met South Africa earlier in the competition, they came short in the key stats of all: number of goals scored.
Also, the last two matches have shown that not only can they not score their way to victory in open play, they should also be expected to falter when it comes to penalty shoot-outs having lost back-to-back matches on penalties.
For all the difficulties that have dogged the team in this tournament, it is not the likes of age cheating allegations that they should worry about. There is hardly any youth team in the history of Nigerian football that hasn’t been accused – primarily by a section of its own fans – of fielding over-aged players.
This is not new.
Rather, Aigbogun and his team have to address two of the biggest issues of all which are: the inability to convert chances to goals in open play and propensity to lose penalty shoot-outs.
In their first match against Burundi , they managed to score 2 out of 19 shots. Against South Africa in the group stages, they had 13 shots but registered no goal.
Against Niger they had 11 shots while against Mali they had 25 only to convert 2 to goals in both matches against a combined 36 shots.
Today, they registered 20 shots against their opponent’s 3 only to convert none of these and lose on penalties just as they had done against Mali in the semi-finals.
This is not a pattern that has won any team any trophy in any competition.
Aigbogun needs sharpshooters and he needs these badly.
If he can find lethal strikers between now and May when the world cup begins, then his team should have a chance of churning out a meaningful outing in Poland.
If he can also overhaul the make-up of his team to present players that look younger, perhaps some of his more hard-line critics will get off his back!
Let us not look at the statistics(20 shots) you can even shoot near the corner flag and it will be counted as shot on goal,let us be flank,nigeria cannot perform well in any tournament without 80% of the players coming from the southern part of the country.they will still try but will always failed.
It is impossible not to consider statistics because they are invaluable in helping to criticality and objectively analyse any match in a manner that supplements other ways of observation.
I quite agree that some of the (20) shots were perhaps wayward but if you whittle these 20 attempts down to “actual shots on target”, Nigeria still had 4 shots that could have scored compared to South Africa who had 0 shots on target.
What this means is: Our boys tested their goalkeeper while their strikers ensured our goalkeeper was on holiday prior to the penalty shoot-outs.
Over the course of the tournament, the Flying Eagles comparative “actual shots on target” stats are as follows:
Group Stage:
Nigeria Vs Burundi: 9:1
Nigeria vs South Africa : 3:1
Nigeria vs Niger: 4:0
Knockout Stage:
Nigeria vs Mali: 7:4
Nigeria vs South Africa: 4:0
Combined total: 27:6
So, out of 27 shots that could have potentially gone in, only 4 made it to the back of the net giving a conversion ratio of 14.8% which is truly appalling.
Aigbogun’s boys are creating the chances but are failing to nestle the ball in the back of the net enough times to produce success.
The ex-Eyimba coach needs lethal strikers, savvy wingers and a bit more option in the middle of the park to achieve anything meaningful in Poland.
A younger looking squad might also appease some of his more intransigent critics.