1. The occasion overwhelmed the boys. Ola Aina, who had been solid all through suddenly, couldn't handle a one on one. Calvin Bassey looked shaky. Ajayi was confused. In short, the whole team was disjointed. Even the compactness that carried them this far was missing.
2. Why did Zaidu make a return to the starting lineup? God! Watch their first goal, and you will see him brazenly leave the post that he was marking and blindly challenge for a ball out of reach. Post that the rule is you MAN IT TILL THE CORNER THREAT IS OVER. Header that enters exactly where he left! That bastid has been a calamity from day one. He always makes me want to throw off tribalist slurs.
3. That referee will ask God for bread, and my Lord will give him agbada wey Tinubu don piss inside to chew. For He is a Just God.
4. Like my guy Dhee Sylvester said on Twitter, Haram, jakujaku football is only sweet when you are winning. Because na the high of that win dey cover up the 99 issues wey full your team. And tonight, of all nights, all the issues came out and refused to be smothered by yet another smash and grab result.
The coach should go.
5. The Ivorians deserved to win. They may not have needed the ref to help them to do it, but they deserved to win. More importantly, they scored two clear, undisputed goals. They showed more hunger, more fight, more cohesion, and more urgency. They are better representatives of African football with their performance tonight. Congratulations to them and to their fine warrior of a striker Haller, who beat cancer, beat the angel of death, beat an imminent group stage exit, and has now beaten the Super Eagles Keep winning, King.
6. I have seen enough to be able to boldly say Iwobi will NEVER be anything but an iron condemn player. The quicker we bin the bastid and start looking for proper creative midfielders, the better for our World Cup qualifying ambitions.
7. Nigeria Police Force, in case you need help opening a fraud case against one boy named Chukwuweze, kindly inbox me. I will take you to the shed where the carpenter was doing an apprenticeship before escaping to begin disguising as a footballer.
8. Troost Ekong will need 2 bad beeshes to massage am thoroughly because the poor man's back would be paining him from carrying this team right from the first game. I feel sad for him, but that's life. Sometimes you come so far, come so close, work so hard, give your all, feel your dreams within reach, and yet...yet...
Good thing he won the player of the tournament. Most deserving award ever.
9.I curse the day Jay Jay Okocha opened his detty mouth and declared Iwobi as his nephew. Because ever since then, they have kept playing him by force, looking for a lion inside the monkey body.
10. All in all, it is a fantastic tournament. African football has come a long way. Although there's still work to be done, the promise and potential are there. I'm happy to have witnessed all of this. The skills and the magic. The ruggedness and the ruthlessness. The shocks and the surprises. The highs and the crushing lows. As my Zulu friend would say, Phila isikhathi eside Afrika 🙌🏿🙌🏿.
7 Comments
Abeg leave iwobi alone
ReplyDeleteThe coach is meant to be a professional and must not be swayed by trivialities or sentiments. The rule should be - ‘let only people who the caps fit, wear them’. The coach should not have entrusted Iwobi with such a position - that was a great error on his part.
ReplyDeleteAgain, just because Iwobi is Okocha’s nephew does not automatically endow him with same energy and skills as his uncle.
Nigerians should start cultivating genuine game spirit and stop this ‘Naija no dey carry last’ slogan / make-belief. Life is about celebrating our wins, and learning from, to improve on our defeats. Hellooo - no person or team, wins all the time.
So let’s all as good citizens of Nigeria, encourage our guys to perform better next year, and not keep bashing them or apportioning blame on anyone.
It was clear the Ivorians played better - Kudos to them! Let’s accept defeat to 2nd place by a more organised team - the Host of the tournament, with our heads held high. Moreso, we should be consoled and feel proud that our own handsome Captain, Ekong, was declared Man of the Tournament.
Yes, we all had high hopes for the Super Eagles, shame they did not live up to our expectations. But that’s how the cookie crumbles!
Now it’s time for the coach (that is if his sack letter is not waiting for him), or whoever succeeds him, to go back to the drawing board, to figure out what they could have done better, and of course work on the flaws…. The next AFCON might just be ours for the taking🙏😁
For you to talk about Chukwueze being a carpenter before starting his career as a professional footballer, is there anything wrong about that.
ReplyDeleteIam not normally given to make comments on pensive occasions like this but I will make exception here to declare Unequivocally that the better side won clear and square. God of Soccer was very fair here because our boys were very lethargic and not hungry enough. I will not scan them individually because it was a collective failure. But I vehemently disagree with sacking the coach. He did well..
ReplyDeleteThe Super Eagles performed woefully yesterday. They are unserious elements not minding whether people could die or not. Have a blessed week ahead
ReplyDeleteHahahaha for Number 9 looking for a Lion in the monkey body…. Nigerians too get foul mouth
ReplyDelete🤣🤣🤣 Let's leave Iwobi alone, he did his best - As Jose Mourinho said, the quality of you Omelette is dependent on the quality of the Eggs you have in your possession. I've had time to reflect and have done my own summation. Ivory Coast hosted a superb tournament: no raids and stealing from guests in Hotels, no armed attack on Buses and no kidnappings, (and I hear no powercuts in the country - had for me to believe because we live in darkness in Nigeria), so I guess it was a fair reward to lift the trophy considering the Super Eagles simply contributed nothing to the occasions, they waited for a smash and grab moment. Typical of the current Nigeria where a man refused to campaign, refused to speak to Nigerians about his plan to rescue the sinking ship, yet knew that as long as his name was on the ballot paper, he was already the winner. The super Eagles adopted the same 'Emilokan' approach, thought just by turning up, they will somehow just pray the trophy away from the team that played better. A final is meant to be a showcase of the two best teams in the tournament, win or lose, you should be remembered for contributing your quota of entertainment to the occasion. I don't think we did that yesterday. Saying that, I also think we are dreaming, as Nigerians we love dreaming, and that is why our President is always sleeping - he is dreaming and hoping by the time he opens his eyes, things would have magically improved in his country so he can claim credit for it. Those boys we had out on the pitch were no Okochas, Amokachis, Finidis, Kanus, Ikpebas, etc. with 20 - 30 UCL matches experience under their belts each. Yesterday I saw plyers who could hardly pass the ball in a straight line, I saw average players but somehow, we expected them to perform beyond their capability just as we expect our 84yr old president to outperform everyone else.
ReplyDelete