I'm not suprised the Eagles were defeated by the Ivory Coast. Because everything happening in Nigeria has been bad news and no good news as in the case of Igbinedon, Etteh, PHCN getting worse, Ibori, Ribadu, OBJ and her daughter. So what do we expect?

[b]What i felt our main problem was was the fact that Drogba this, drogba that. Before the match i read in some of the papers where Drogba himself said he'll single-handedly destroy nigeria. I guess most of our defenders were so pre-occupied with marking Drogba out that they forgot there was an other young chap in the name of Solomon Kalou who could cause so much havoc. And havoc he did. I even noticed at a point that about two of our defenders were marking Drogba alone.

Drogba is a kind of player who likes drawing attention to himself. From what i've seen in all his matches in Chelsea, he'll pull most of the defenders to himself cause they all know what a deadly player he is, but at the same time, once there are more than one player on him, it will mean there is one free player somewhere else in the midfield. That's why he's mostly the only one upfront. once that is done, the guys behind him run up front and they free themselves. just exactly what happened yesterday.

Apart from that, our attack line too was not biting. I dont know why, but why were they shy of shooting from range. Even the commentator was yelling "shoot!!! shoot!!!" at some point in the game. why do owe always want to dress all balls we get? If we don't take time, i won't be surprised if we lose by the same scoreline against mali.

We lost to a better and more prepared team. that's the truth. What we need to do now is this: if NFA is a reasonable set of people(which i doubt), they should pick the late yemi tella's(may his soul rest in peace) team and GROOM those boys. Everyone that is saying Vogts should have brought Chrisantus along don't know what they are saying, am sorry for the pun. The guy would have been lost in the euphoria of the super eagles. he would have messed up big-time. Let them coach these boys, groom them well, give them the proper training, and i tell u those guys will be selling like hot cakes come 5 to 6 years time. [/b]

I can' t say I'm surprised we lost, that game looked so familiar! its the same way our super eagles always play -- LAID BACK!!! as if we had nothin to lose! even when the Ivorians went a goal up, they still played as though they were 2 goals down! its in the heart, we have the players, the team, they were just not playing FOOTBALL!!! Kalou? Good chap, plenty luck to have caught our defenders "ball watching"

i won my first bet (with money) in life ever. N500 that CIV beat Nigeria, could not have been more obvious.

I am not an avid fan of football nor the super eagles, but from what i hear.
we have been like this since westerhofs boys went to USA 94/Atlanta, after that it has been downhill for the super eagles,

Anyways,

I am placing a huge bet that we don't go past the second group matches. please Super Eagles don't fail me now

LOL . . . Those Musular Cote D'ivoire Boys were just too much for 'em Boys!

i av said it and still maintain it that we are wasting money on foreign coaches.

imagine Vogts playing 4-4-3 formation with paralysed wings! i don't know if the technical crew could not read the first half when it was glaring that things were not working.

Martins kept playing from the left, Utaka was nowhere to be found around the seventh wing, and Yakubu was stranded in the center. Bad game plan! Vogts could not use what he has optimally!

If i were to play those guys in the 4-4-3 formation, T/Taiwo will be my 11, Odewinge on 7, Yakubu 8, and Martins 9. this will give Kanu and Mikel to do a go job at the midfield.

I believe we av coaches in this country that could track our football success history and latch on it to produce what we need. sincerely, none of Shuaibu, Onigbinde, or Siasia could av played that nonsense Vogts played yesterday!

I love it that we lost that game. if it had not happened like that, we won't know where we stand.

my opinion is :

we are experiencing a decline in our football especially at the senior level.and only GOD knows when we will recover.
vogts doesnt even want to help his .c.v.

NIGERIA-3   COTEDEVOMIT-0

ololakenny:

i av said it and still maintain it that we are wasting money on foreign coaches.

imagine Vogts playing 4-4-3 formation with paralysed wings! i don't know if the technical crew could not read the first half when it was glaring that things were not working.

Martins kept playing from the left, Utaka was nowhere to be found around the seventh wing, and Yakubu was stranded in the center. Bad game plan! Vogts could not use what he has optimally!

If i were to play those guys in the 4-4-3 formation, T/Taiwo will be my 11, Odewinge on 7, Yakubu 8, and Martins 9. this will give Kanu and Mikel to do a go job at the midfield.

I believe we av coaches in this country that could track our football success history and latch on it to produce what we need. sincerely, none of Shuaibu, Onigbinde, or Siasia could av played that nonsense Vogts played yesterday!thing in the midfielder

I love it that we lost that game. if it had not happened like that, we won't know where we stand.

ield you would

Vogts went for the wings cos the strenght of the Ivorians was in the midfield. With guys like Yaya Toure et al in the midfield you would really need to have world class midfielders to win anything in the midfield. Gone are the days when we had midfielders in the mould of Oliseh, Amokachi (before he was converted to an attacker), Nwanu, Adepoju et al. These are guys that would not bow down to any nonsense from the opposing midfielders. Even the sturdy defense of Okechukwu , Iroha and Eguaveon is enuff to scare the shit out of any opposing midfielder.
So plis stop blaming Vogts abeg. He might have raised some eyebrows with his selection buit he is not the problem. Bottomline is dat we have stopped producing quality players and for some reason I always find myself blaming the football adminstration in Nigeria.

A look @ the table for award of the best players in Africa will give u an indication of wat is happening
1993 ---- 1st Abedi Pele 2nd Rashidi
1994---- 1st Rashidi 2nd George Weah
1995---- ist Amunike
1996 1st George weah 2nd Amokachi
1997 1st Kanu 3rd Taribo
1998 1st Ikpeba 2nd Okocha 3rd Oliseh
2000 1st Kanu

And then the music stopped . From 1993 to 2000 ( apart from 1999) a Nigerian always ends up in the top three. In 98 , it was just an all Nigerian affair. Check then from 2001 till date ( apart from cameo appearances by Okocha) Nigerians have been completely absent from that list

ohhhhh jeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


I DON MISSS O!

I THINK SAY NA NEST MONTH THE NATIONS CUP GO START

NIGERIA DON PLAY NOW NOW

ABEG MAKE UNA TELL ME SCORES

watch out Cameroon is coming back

Emad

do u really feel one good match against Nigeria makes the Ivorien keeper one of the very best in the game ? TRUTH BE SAID he wont even be rated as one of the top 10 goalies in Africa !!!

Camegir

Camel-roon ? yeah rite !

I am so sad we lost. We are ranked #1 for God's sake. How do we lose against Ivory Coast. Thank God am not a gambler.

what is the big deal? We lost and deservedly so!

get your acts together for the next game.

who cares about ranking? Did Egypt look at ranking before spanking Cameroun today?

camegirl:

watch out Cameroon is coming back

back down to earth you mean?

We have Mali to face next

Mc Omo:

Emad

do u really feel one good match against Nigeria makes the Ivorien keeper one of the very best in the game ? TRUTH BE SAID he wont even be rated as one of the top 10 goalies in Africa !!!

McOmo, like i said re watch the match
watch that Goal keeper carefully, his name will be put in the list when this ANC is over, believe me

Don't blame Vogts.He was still trying players.He thought it was a friendly match.

Nigeria will still qualify, despite they lost to the Elephant of Cote D'ivore, If Super Eagles can beat Mali and Benin were are still on the race, I can see the Super Eagle playing in one of the knockout stage.

jay jay, we miss you

I love `em elephants!!!!! , beleive me even the squirrels will knaw on this vultures, i mean eagles

Umm, inspite of the lacklustre perfomance of our boyz, i biliv we will at least get to the next round and meet Ghana

My consolation is that out of all the nations cup matches i have watched the ivoriens are the best i have seen, followed by the egyptians, then our eagles.

This team seems to have so much depth but just because of some funny selections, the team could not just play at its optimum

My Obsevations:
Kanu should never never and i mean never start in a match of that magnitude,he would have been more effective as a supersub
Nsofor, uche kalu and odenigwe had no bussiness on the bench, while Yakubu had no bussiness on that field,nsofor on the left with odems on the right and martins and the portsmouth guy woud definitely have given our attack more bite and also initiate effective counter attacks which Ngeria is well noted for
The back four need some serious talking to, if we are to survive a team like Egypt if we eventually meet them,

But i am not the coach just came to these conclusions thru observation as we dont knowwhat obtains in the eagle camp in Ghana.

@ UI
jay jay, we miss you

True word.

To be frank with you the mistake was already made from the beginning when Berti Vogts named his squad, it was an unfortunate list because a midfield built around Mikel who plays as a defensive midfielder for chelsea cannot lay the right passes for attaackers to score and when your mifield is zero then the pressure comes to the defence and the strikers will be helpless, so lets pray for a divine intervention to prevent the super eagles from going out in the first round.

Our boys were playing as if they hadn't eaten for days before the game.

Its even more than you guys think about the game as a matter of fact coach berti Vogt is not the best one you could now put in that game By the way have you guys forgot how he made us to lost the game twice in the year back, year back infact i believe all the super eagles are extremely better than before but only vogts is the worst, believe me, as for coach Theophilus Adeyemi Tella who died is the brave and strong nigerian coach you ever ever knew we would put now in the game however even if we do it that way am absolutely sure "we would have been unbeatable ever and ever believe me", in addition all the super eagles are extremely ready to face the rough game and they are hungry for success like Kanu, mikel, martin, obafemi and taiye taiwo said earlier, Always prayerfully

Even if anyone of you have comment or reply about this be free to holla me on this mail : youngharry_charles@yahoo.com

i think the first mistake was playing Kanu from the start.
then you take off kanu and bring in okororonkwo, who is he? he had osaze on the bench, he had nsofor.
vogts needed to bring in a wing player or someone who can play on the wings. we rarely trouble cote d'ivoire once they went back to 4-4-2, cos 4-2-2-2 or whatever formation that guy used just did not work for us.

Now that I'm calm and i've had time to think, I think we'll qualify from the group, but watch out for the Pharaohs of Egypt
I think they are the best team in the tournament so far, they have a very disciplined squad and a good coach

See this

http://goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=558192

ThisDay claims that squad harmony is far from optimal in the Super Eagles camp.

The Nigerian daily claims that the team bus was far from a happy place during the side's brief journey from the stadium to the hotel after their 1-0 loss.

Goalkeeper Austin Ejide was reportedly restrained by other travelers after his argument with Joseph Yobo nearly came to blows.

Ejide was berating the stopper for failing to close down Salomon Kalou in the incident that led to the goal. The two had already traded harsh words on the pitch to this effect.

John Mikel Obi downplayed talk of disharmony, but admitted that things had not gone well.

"We made one mistake and that was the goal. When you make such mistakes you pay dearly for it," Obi sighed. "We should learn from them and people should take full responsibility."

"If we can do that, we've got a long way to go in this tournament, because we've got a good team and we played well," the 20-year-old midfielder added.

"We just need to concentrate all the time if we want to achieve anything."

I never had a belief in this super eagles cause i feel they lack the character of champions, i dont see any dearth in talents as opposed to what most people feel, what is lacking is the character that precedes the presence of champions. All the change we need is in the mentality and the team would go places. Then would someone please tell Vogts not to start Kanu again. Does he not know who a super sub is?
He nees to see the Nigeria - Zimbabwe game at the last Nations cup for a tip on Kanu's role in the team.
My humble submission

Maki i no talk, *Vexin*

Nigeria is a sad and hopeless loser. Flying eagles are the best out of the eagle family.