RandaFooty: Everything Nigerian football, home and abroad

  1. South Africa can put up a show..... if the want to ( or maybe not). The pitches in this years edition have been crap to say the least. The World Cup pitches used was top notch, maybe this is a step down? who knows, i expected better, i hope it improves as the tournament progresses. 2. The Ivory Coast are not a one man team. Many have labelled the CIV ' Drogba and others' but it's now more of Yaya Toure, Gervinho and others. The way they annihilated Tunisia in their second game speaks volumes of that. Is this their year? lets wait and see. 3. African referees haven't regressed & evidently so. Questionable and inconsistent calls have marred a lot of games. Togo scored a legitimate goal vs CIV that was disallowed. Ghana's goalkeeper Fatau Dauda picked the ball outside his box and was yellow carded while Soumala Abdoulaye of Burkina Faso was given his matching orders for the same offense. Zambia was gifted a penalty that never was vs Nigeria....

The Super Eagles game against Zambia was a one of  of two halves. Nigeria was pathetic in the first half, they allowed the Zambians free reign in and around the midfield, though Fegor Ogude tried hard to contain the rampaging Zambians. The 4-3-3 formation Coach Stephen deployed didn't work to full effect because the midfield wasn't tight and creative enough to release Ahmed Musa and Victor Moses who played as auxiliary strikers to Emmanuel Emenike. Musa was the main culprit as his wayward crossing put paid to promising counter attacks by Nigeria.  The second half was much more better as Nigeria began to assert themselves on the game. Igiebor for me, was the weakest link in the midfield, his basketball type zonal marking left Ogenyi Onazi ( playing in an unfamiliar right back role) exposed even though both Victor Moses and Ahmed Musa who were alternating between the wings should have tracked back better to support him.  Below is my rating of the Super Eagles player