Super Eagles winger, Simon Moses has blamed the referee’s officiating in the team’s 2-1 loss to Algeria in an international friendly game played on Tuesday.
Recall that Nigeria took the lead just eight minutes into the game when Terem Moffi struck for Nigeria before Manchester City star, Riyad Mahrez levelled parity for the Fennecs in the 40th minute when he converted from the spot.
However, Youcef Atal cracker, 21 minutes later, condemned the Peseiro to his first defeat to an African side since taking over the team earlier in the year.
Reacting to the game, Simon faulted the officiating from the centre referee and also said that the game did not go the way they planned it.
“Actually the game did not go the way we planned it. But it’s part of the job because we learn every day. And I believe we will pick a lot from it.
“We all know that the referee did not give us justice. But then the coach said we should forget about it and keep fighting. We just need to encourage and motivate ourselves because we play for pride, we play for our family and the Nigerian fans. I believe we did our best but it did not go as planned.”
Just last week, Nigeria had battled to a 2-2 draw with the Algerian home-based side. Both sides did not qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but the games were expected to get the Nigerian gaffer better acquainted with the players.
8 Comments
Fault your goal keeper as well because for the past four years the boy has been a source of sorrow to eagels.
On fifa website the score remains
Algeria 2 vs Nigeria 2
And referee name was asterisk for is mistake.
Automatically fifa wil not use him any competitive competition again.
Yea, the referee was poor. He basically awarded Algeria that Penalty for their equaliser by Mahrez. It was never a penalty!
Having said that the Nigerian team was poor and overwhelmed by the foxes style of play. We still need a decent creative midfielder and also defensive midfielder in the SE team.
What kind of lie is this? How can FIFA change the ending score of a game
This shud serve as a big lesson for rivers , plateau and co in their preparing for the CAF competitions .
Referee will always work for the north African team at home.
So in the 1st leg if they don’t score up to 4 goals at home . They shud forget the second leg. The north African teams wil do everything possible to win at home .
We all can see . even running into the field to stop a match by fans to gain more time is possible not to talk about referee pointing to the penalty box if a player of the home team suddenly develop a cramp in the opponent box 18 .CAF has condole this things for long from the olden days even VAR can’t help it
honestly, the officiating was terrible. but there are things we cannot miss and need to work on. Super Eagles have no goalie and the defense is erratic. Bassey, is not good with areial balls and needs o work on is robust tackling style. I feel moffi overstayed when especially when is dribbles and play were predictable. generally, i like the shouts from the touchline, by the coach but i really cannot blame him for the tactical blunder ( felt the boys abandon his tactics in the second half). But i feel we could have gotten a draw if the super eagles had tried some game management and gamesmanship tactics. it is what is seriously lacking in our football. we have to know that football is not only being an attacking side sport. it is more of being adaptive and dynamic to what happens on the field and to what the opposition and referee throws at you
Stop the blame game and accept defeat in good faith. Your useless keepers are your problems. Tunisia showed it in afcon in Cameroon. Ghana repeated same long distance goal in Abuja and now Algeria has putting an ice completely on it
Just accept that you dont have a team amd rebuild. Stop over hyping your players
I’ve been watching football since 1952. Nigerians hardly ever blame the referee. Rather they crucify themselves when losing and may even switch support to their opponents. The referee in this game against Algeria it has to be said was a mild fraud.