Nigeria began their AFCON U-23 double-header qualifier versus Libya with a 2-0 defeat at the Stade de Ben Guerdane on Wednesday evening.
Coach Imama Amakpakabo’s midfield and attack were hugely dominated by foreign-based pros such as the likes of Arsenal’s Kelechi Nwakali, Liverpool’s Taiwo Awoniyi, Villareal’s Samuel Chukwueze and a host of others.
The North African nation took the lead after just seven minutes when striker, Zakaria Alharaish scored to put his team ahead following a quick move which startled the Nigerian players.
Things got worse for Nigeria after goalkeeper, Adamu Abubakar was sent off in the closing stages of the first half for handling outside the area as the defence showed some nervy and uninspiring displays in closing down their pacy opponents.
While Dennis Bonaventure made way in a tactical change after the setback, Orewale Oremade was brought on to mend the goalpost but that did little to stem the flow of the Libyans as they doubled their lead in the second half.
And that was after another quick counter-attack to leave Nigeria with a mountain to climb in the second leg coming up at the Stephen Keshi Stadium, Asaba on Monday, March 25.
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COMMENTS
Libya 2. Nigeria 0. These boys are no good. The Nigerian boys are over pumped and over fed. The coach too, is over fed no-good individual who thinks the Libya is there to be plucked. YOU-NOT-GOOD. Libyans are coming to Nigeria to teach you how to play soccer and embarrass you and knock Nigeria out. Sad to say.
Prophet of Doom, How Market? The same boys flogged the Lybians with 1,2,3,4 unreplied goals. Pls don’t be too fast to judge, conclude, write off Any Nigerian player…
Water never pass garri yet. Libya still have to come here and defend their 2 goal lead. I just wish we can get a better pitch, for our boys to express themselves better.
The truth is we don’t have good homebase anything players n coach etc, all the players that flop were all home-based players. No wonder the can’take go far I’m continental football. Please am backing Nigeria let concentrate with foreign base players like Senegal n cotedivior until l we have a good league.
Na now u know?Loool. See all those calling for home based to be added to our national teams are doing this for their selfish reasons. They are either agents, family members, friends or dead brains individuals who just fail to see homebase invitation to national teams is killing our football. Not because some homebase are not talented but because national team is a place for super stars in terms of talent, exposure, confidence level, winners mentality etc n not just talent only. Every pure homebase talent today,gets shipped out to a foreign club tomorrow, which is d real reason those people calling for homebase to be invited. And again,in d invitation of foreign based, d coach gets bombarded regarding who to invite by agents who are only interested in increasing that players rating so as to get improve contract, not minding if d player truly have d quality to play for d national teams. Nigeria national teams have become a laughing stock world over. At d last world cup, every analyst would come n make laugh about how bad Nigeria was playing. Very sad n shameful. Anyway, I won’t blame Amakpabo, we still gonna quality. Gone are the days, I would refuse to eat when Nigeria lose a match. I can only sit back now n laugh at d madness that our football has turned into.
Sorry for some typo errors in my sentence above
Where are those that opined that this dream team should play the super eagle? Ó kwa ukwu a ka Nnama ga-eji a-ga Umuahia?
Hihihih…. Nwannem, are u see Wat I am saw….? Apologies to chief zebrudaya
When I first saw Names like Adamu, Galadima in Goal keeping department, I was shocked cos I can’t remember an Aboki keeping any Naija match. Now we have two in the squad. U can see the result.he came out of the box to handle ball and we paid dearly for it. The name Galadima and Adamu sound familiar to me. The same happened at under 20. They dominated midfield to the attack and it was so obvious that we praised only the defence for conceeding just once all through the tournament but couldn’t score goals. I’ll advice we call on Awaziem 20, Onyekuru 21 and Osimhen 19 to join this team. We can still make it.
Useless team filled with over aged and over hyped players.. Azubuike okechukwu has had a journey man from Egypt to Turkey second tiers side. Obviously not a good player and should have no business in this present team. There is no way this quack team will beat a well oiled Libyan side that took them apart. We have seen shock.. Horror is on the way..
Azubuike obviously not a good player? Obviously you have not been following the player. he is currently one of the best midfield players in Turkey having moved there in January from Egypt. He is also named in the Turkish premier League team of the month for February in the Turkish premier league because of his performances. best in the league for last month, based on statistic of all the players performances.
The one phrase I agree with in your comment is “well oiled Libyan team”.
Our boys had one day to train before this match, the Libyans had over a month to train. One day’s training is not enough to prosecute an international match at any level, talk less one level below senior level. The next game will be different. Will we score 3 un-replied goals? Possibly. We dominated them for the entire second half with 10 men and should have snatched a valuable away goal if Awoniyi had not fluffed Chukwueze’s corner.
Oh, and at least 10 of the 18 in the days squad are “age verified” having played under 15 and under 17 for Nigeria plus won the world cup in 2015 and 2013 after passing MRI checks
https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/225/Tournaments/17/Turkey-Super-Lig
Lol!!!! Yoy are very funny, my friend. O diegwu o. Hmmm, anyway, I strongly believe they would bounce back. The team is very good with great quality. You can’t compare them to the lybians who have been together for a very Long time. Abeg, make we encourage and stand beside them. As for the aboki keepers, the coach really needs to do something A$AP otherwise na for centre circle him go go handle the ball next time. Lol
So Akpey, Agbim and etafia are abokis…? Or abokis too aren’t Nigerians….?
it’s a shame. I don’t know who the coach wanted to please when he included Adamu in the team and to make the matter worst he picked him as the team 1st choice goalkeeper and we all see the result.
I wanted to comment about this when I saw the list of players but decided not to talk as some people may take it as a tribal comment. But thank God that action speaks louder than voice here.
Libya 2 nigeria 0
Having watched d game live .
Recommending that d coach should step aside.y?
He doesn’t have a plan dat can beat dis Libyans in a week.2. Dey libya have a structure, they are locking d middlefield with more men and there was no time eagles have chances to beat their defence men without a fight .the eagles play with 2 defence line gIve opportunity for counter attack by d Libyans. So d coach forgot his head.. dey are coming to asaba to score again . Lobi rangers already knew wat I m talking about. See eagles passing d ball all around d field as if dey are training.
So on d 25th u going to see a timid eagles if something urgent is not done fast.d liby ans are not good but dey wil mark eagles 95mins non stop .from Tunis 00971556038406
Well…. Thats the result of the 4 weeks camping by the Libyans as against the 48hrs camping of our team. Even with pep guardiola, just 48 hrs with a team you haven’t coached before cannot yield miracles. Let’s hope they can make the best use of the next 5 days they have. Impossible is nothing.
This was the way we lost out of 2012 olympic, won 2-0 at home against Ghana and lost 3-0 in Accra.
We lost out of u17 nation cup and world to Niger Republic, lost away and draw home.
There is fire on the mountain already, I just hope we can have a coach who understand what it takes to play at international level and not these local champions.
Its very painful loosing by this kind of margin.
I can’t believe Nigeria couldn’t raise an U-23 team that would beat the Libyans! Libya is not a soccer power in Africa, not even a regional power in the North Africa.
The team and the coaching crew must simply find an answer by the next March on the 25th, or this will be a very big embarrassment to us.
what a show of shame.. for a country like mine full of young and energetic players waititng for opportunity..na d one wey don chop belleful una dey call…abeg my adugbo guy go beat dis so called dream vii…
Our boys collected 2 red cards! I cant remember a game in which 2 Nigerians were sent off. The coach is to blame for not instilling discipline. The goalkeeper habdled a ball outside the box to show he does not know the laws of football
It seems we are all now in disbelief. We were the same people clamouring for the addition of most of these guys, some of us were even insulting Rohr “Ah…can’t believe he didn’t include Awoniyi, Denis, Nwakali should be a regular in the super eagles..Okechukwu should be there…” all of a sudden we are in disbelief. Guyz, Libya is a very good team, even the senior team. The fact that Rohr’s men beat them boils down to Rohr and his tactics…in those games we had Owobi giving surprise defence splitting passes, Musa sneaking into different holes, Ighalo positioning well etc. That’s the power of a team and a good coach. Now you see why Rohr sticks with his guns.
Lobi stars and rangers were stunned not dat dey did not play but der coaching crew slept off tactically
People can say whatever they like,the coach Amakpabo did his best but maybe he could have done better by sticking to d midfielders n attackers he had been working with n probably only start with 2 or 3 of d new arrivals. Watching d game you could see they were showing lots of tiredness. Traveling long distance tires out one mentally n playing such game,requires one to be top notch mentally. Azubuike, Kelechi, Taiwo, etc are very very good players. Rohr under same preparation would have failed woefully, that is not to say he is a bad coach even though he is showing signs of lost interest in managing Super Eagles, maybe due to Nigeria’s negative setup as a whole. But like this or not, we will spank Libya when they come visiting n qualify for the next round.
Like attack attack and dey defend defend. And den one chance dey score.loi
Libya just showed our u23 dream team that names do not play the round leather game but team work, team spirit. Where the team chemistry is lacking as we saw in Nigeria’s u23, the result should not come as a result, 2nil loss.
It is true that we invited some of the best Nigerian players in Europe with the names like Taiwo Awoniyi, Chukwueze, Nwakali, Azubuike(one of the best midfileders in turkey), Dennis Bonaventure to mention but a few.
By the way, Libya side was not a mincemeat, they are a strong side which we took for granted.
We forgot so quickly what huge challenge their senior side posed against the SE during the AFCON, how dey bounced back from the dead to level up at 2-2 on a neutral ground;it took the genius and experience of Ighalo to produce the magic moment in the dire minute of the game with the winning goal in the pulsating 3-2 victory.
The Libya though a beatable side yet a tough opposition with so much quality that can’t be taken for granted.
With the gang of quality players in all the dept of the u23 side, the coach should work out a tactical formation and team chemistry to grind massive victory against the Libyan forces.
All we have to do is spell L-I-B-Y-A in the return leg 🙂
Dem go hear weeeeeen.