Analysis of our Performance in South Africa (1)

In a way the typical Nigerian football purist will be glad that we got the untidy matter of the Super Eagles done and dusted with their early exit. They can now relax in their couch and enjoy football from across the world, without the high blood pressure from supporting the national team. But they would still be bugged by the question – what went wrong? And the follow up; what could Nigeria have done better? I penned this as a way to bring out the debate in the open. I may be wrong in my assertions, but I believe that by getting football people to focus on what went wrong and what we could have done better, somewhere in the response pages will lie the answer to our present football state. The debate is for the football purist, not politicians or blabbers that have nothing to contribute to the knowledge of the beautiful game. What went wrong and what is the way forward starting with our match V Argentina is analyzed below.

Nigeria V Argentina

I must say that this match confirmed to me the extent of fear which the South American have for Nigerian football. With only a one goal margin, the Argentines celebrated the victory like they had won the tournament. This fear was in part due to our performances in the Olympics in the USA (Bonfere Joe), the under-aged competitions we have won (fielding over-aged players?) and the last Olympics in China (Sia Sia). So, kudos to the players and the officials that led us in those events. History is kind to the victorious but to the losers, it is always never kind enough!

We engaged a tensed Argentine side that played a 4-2-1-1-2 or 4-3-3 formation, with a Gutirez a forward converted to a RB. Samuel of Inter kept his place as one of the centre halves for the Argentines (Argies for short). Up front Messi, Higuan and Tevez were deployed with Di Maria combing from the left flank. Mascherano was the DM who allowed Veron to have a creative role.

Nigeria started with a surprise line up. Well, surprise to those of us that know Keita, but no surprise to those who had watched Largaback’s preparations. Keita was chosen to play a curious defensive RM role, checking Di Maria and helping the midfield without any attacking threat. I had thought before now that the best form of defense is attack. Ogbuke and Nsofor were surprisingly chosen ahead of known stars like Osaze, Uche and Martins. Their roles were to support the lone striker –Yakubu and to foray surprise shots to the Argies. No Thanks to the total control of the mid by Veron and Mascherano, they were very ineffective. In the mid we had young Haruna to hold the ball and create and Etuhu as the DM enforcer. Our formation was a modified 4-5-1, which can be converted to 4-3-3 when attacking.

During the match, we allowed the Argies to hold on to the ball the way they wanted even in our own half and defended in zones – perhaps instructions from the coach? What exactly was the strategy for Messi et al? Zonal Marking? Keep the zones and hopefully get the ball? It did not work, but it allowed Messi to mess around with our defense. Our mid of Haruna and Etuhu were not in the game. Firstly Haruna carried out only defensive duties not creative but was always out-muscled from the ball by the Argies and Etuhu was really a disappointment keeping the ball (We missed Mikel more than we realize). Keita did a job of protecting the right side and keeping Di Maria quiet but our saving grace was the goalkeeper Enyeama, because our midfield and defense were raped (breached) several times. We know the first goal was a foul, since our player was wrestled down to allow a free header for the free header from the unmarked aging Argie Left back Gabriel Heinze. But many more goals would have been scored against us. Our best performance was in the 2nd half when Osaze and Martins were introduced and unfortunately we fluffed opportunities.

Largarback made several mistakes and should be accountable.

1) Wrong Selection of players – Perhaps he does not know the boys well enough but what was his Nigerian assistant doing?

2) Poor tactics – Due to competence and also not knowing the boys well enough

3) Why play Keita as RM? Why not play him in a role that is suitable to him? Why leave our mid open with a very good Argie side?

4) The coach chose to prepare his team in a low altitude environment, when they were to play in a high altitude environment. It takes 2 weeks for the body to fully acclimatize to these types of changes I am told. This is a joint fault of the coach and the FA.

5) Our players were ball watching at the back and failed to track back to dispossess the Argies – again poor coaching.

6) The quality of most of our free kicks / corner kicks was poor. Did the coach practice free kicks / corners enough with these boys? I doubt it! The quality of the ball in the final third of the opponents half were also poor.

7) The ball movement was average and the movement off the ball was poor until Osaze and Martins were introduced. However, we had some shape, due to the zonal marking arrangement of this team. It is doubtful if we were psychologically prepared enough for this opening match!


Hindsight they say is everything but most of us saw this defeat coming and would have gone for this line up instead

------------------------Enyeama-----------------------------------------------------

Odiah ------------Yobo/Adeleye------Shittu/Apam----------------------Taiwo/Echejile

---------------------Keita--------Etuhu------------------------------------

------------------------------Uche ( Haruna, Kanu)---------------------------------

Utaka (Ogbuke)--------------------------------------------------------------Osaze (Nsofor)


----------------------------------------Martin (Yakubu)----------------------------------


With Osaze and Utaka at the wings, we had a chance to attack the poor Heinze - Argie LB and the make shift RB Gutierez. They would also have helped at the mid to track back and help the midfield. Martins is the fastest CF we have and it is appalling that against a slow and makeshift Argie defense we did not unleash him from the beginning. Yaks showed why he should not be first choice in that slot! See you in the comments. Please limit to the Nigeria v Argentina match. We shall look at the others as well.

At the end of the day, I feel we that based on obvious tactical errors from these all winnable matches, I would recommend to sack coach / pretender Largerback. I would also recommend the following

a) Get a world class foreign signed to a long term deal including developing the younger eagles. Aim should be to win the African Cup of Nations.
b) Get various Nigerian coaches on a training roaster in various clubs in the world during this transition and arrange local training as well.
c) New coach should help discover local talents, so we start planning with strong Local based Eagles. He should liaise with the Local Eagles coach to achieve this.
d) Football talents are best discovered young. We should revisit various levels of competitions to ensure we are not missing out on talents. When we discover talents, we should have a plan to mature the talents.

foreign coach is not the answer, the first nigeria player that they know is yakubu aiyebenni and they would build the team around him, when they fail excuse is that they dont know the players very well. but a nigeria that have been following the team since 2006 would drop the old players and bring good new players, they would also be ready to watch local league in a dirty circumstance.

But we cannot call largerback a good foreign coach. he is average at best and we saw his best in the WC. Imagine a foreign coach for bazil benching Kaka etc! The country would shout blue murder! Where was our sense of outrage in this man's selections?

nigerians no get sense after this man dupe us, they still want him for 4years

This fear was in part due to our performances in the Olympics in the USA (Bonfere Joe), the under-aged competitions we have won (fielding over-aged players?) and the last Olympics in China (Sia Sia).

What fear!!!!

A game 12 years ago, knowing that they beat us in 2002 and also in the last Olympics, ,