tbaba1234:


Exactly, we need a striker that offers that kind of danger.

We don't have one and that's why we ought to have jettisoned the idea of playing a lone striker and find alternate attack pairings. But Baba no gree.

edi287:

His first game as a senior player was as an LM. He then started playing more as a AM/CM and playing occasionally out wide.
Here are the positions he played for Schalke
From 07/08 seasons

That's true. .
I never really followed him that much.
Thought it was just a case of a young player being deployed in the only available space. Like in the case of Ante Coric who is the closest thing to Iniesta at the moment, but usually gets played as a winger for Croatia based on his age. He didn't make the World cup though.

Even with VAR, two clear errors went uncorrected.. so i dare ask, what is the job of the so called VAR?

andrew444:


Tell dem bro,some even said he now plays AM for his Chinese club which we all know is a lie

Bunch of clown
Some of them still have the gut to come an argue here
Shove it up their ass

Shebi una see how teams are fighting. No be to dey cry 'we are underdogs, we are underdogs' up and down.

My friend fight!!!

Another upset.... Switzerland held on and picked a point against the mighty seleçao.


This World cup ehn....

Crazy!!!!

Brazil made the call for VAR but the ref refused. That, I cannot understand. Anyway, Well done Switzerland and kudos to Akanji.

somehow:
pure push yet no VAR

MetalJigsaw:
Thesame perennial problem of gifting the opponent too much room to operate keeps plaguing the Super Eagles.One could see how the Super Eagles players wouldn’t close down the Crots and giving acres of space for them to easily pick out passes,even in set-pieces.
Mario Mandzukic and another Crotian player were left unmarked in the area where the ball was floated to enroute scoring their goal.

The only Eagles player shielding the goal from these two was Etebo, and even at this, it wasn’t at close quarters.This gave Mandzukic the priceless gift of that free flying header to force an Etebo own goal.
It is the more sickening that this problem of gifting the opponents too much room to operate has been well noticed and vaunted, but with nothing done to mitigate it. I remember even Messi once pointing it out of the Nigerian team.

Conversely, the Croats were closely man-marking our players and smothering them of freedom of expression on the field of play.

Na lie. Croatia gave us space. We didn't just know what to do with it.

This calls for concern

Mujtahida:
Shebi una see how teams are fighting. No be to dey cry 'we are underdogs, we are underdogs' up and down.

My friend fight!!!

I dae tell you bro.

Mexico surprised me, then this Swiss.

Russia 2018 General Titbits


#BRA's record in the opening game of the last 11 #WorldCup tournaments:

DWWWWWWWWWD

#SUI become the first side to avoid defeat against Brazil in their opening game since Sweden in 1978.

Shey naija no dey carry last
How come we come dey carry Last for this tournament?

Is it just me or is anyone else noticing that almost all teams so far at this world cup are playing 4-2-3-1 formation


Abi Fifa instructed them to play that formation strictly ni?

AIG07:
This calls for concern

When you have a DOOR called HallDORsson added to the rugged discipline of their double layered defence amd their entire rigid structure as a team. My good man, it is indeed a big ask.. A herculean task but we must step unto the pitch and try do what those two greats did not achieve with their sides..... BEAT ICELAND.

But to do so we have to get past this DOOR below...

Mujtahida:

But you've not been able to prove it was sentiments that motivated his choice of players. He's been there since 2006. This is his third WC and even fourth if we include 06 in which he was an assistant to Klinsmann. He's been through 3 Euros. Now he picked players for the WC and your reason why he did so is that it was sentiments. There's no factual basis for your conclusions. That's why I said it's your opinion.

Sure he would be judged. In 2014 Spain couldn't make the second round and it was universally agreed that it was because they took an ageing team to WC.

All I'm saying is that your reason for this German loss doesn't hold water because you cannot prove that it was sentiments that motivated the coach's choice.

If him no carry Neuer now you'd probably say 'chai see this sentimental coach, he left a world class Neuer and picked other gk'

Human beings are sentimental but Germans are renowned to be straightforward, unsentimental people. And that's a very strong reason why I doubt your postulation particularly in the light of the fact that Loew didn't start yesterday. He knows the template of success and failure. He's likely to stick to it than to allow sentiments be cloud his judgment.

Neuer barely played last season for Bayern because of injuries. No way I would have said Neuer should be there even if he barely played through out the season. Not when you have a couple of other world class choices in that same position.

Also, every coach have their favorite players and Germans are like every other human specie, they don't have an off switch when you talk of favoritism, loyalty and sentiment.

waoo, you just spoke my mind bro. I think the Europeans want to use this VAR of a thing to rig the system. See the how Hummel's push Hernandez down yet no pk was given.

somehow:
Very similar to what Ekong did. pure robbery from the ref. even the Swiss goal was a push. seems VAR is only used for specific teams

Sportilitica:
After watching Mexico, I have a question.
What is exactly wrong with our team
Why are we playing like this??
What can be done post World cup to prevent this same issue from happening over and over again.

Simple answer.

1, We had the chance to get Herve Renard (modern football philosophy), but chose Rohr (German.. Ancient German football philosophy)

2, The Super Eagles players are not fit. Not all but most, probably more than 60%

3, Rohr's tactics are outdated: No triangular positioning, too spaced out, flat footed positioning, no tactical tricks or set pieces. Heck we played a conservative 4-2-3-1 with a deep sitting defense. . . .

4, The players went to the world cup with a loser mentality. Mikel's pre-match interview summed it up: " It's impossible to win every match" those were his words. . . . Now ask yourself who says that, and if you actually believe that, why contend in the first place?

edi287:

Agreed. I've been following him lately and that guy will add a lot to this our midfield. NFF should be on his case

I hope it's right after the world cup and I hope we do very well in this World cup to attract these lads.

realpoacher:
Is it just me or is anyone else noticing that almost all teams so far at this world cup are playing 4-2-3-1 formation


Abi Fifa instructed them to play that formation strictly ni?

Ah I thought only me noticed ooo

Mujtahida:
Shebi una see how teams are fighting. No be to dey cry 'we are underdogs, we are underdogs' up and down.

My friend fight!!!

the boys are not psychologically ready for the big stage. I don't know what the team psychologist is doing?

They showed that attitude during the friendlies. Just remembered a scenerio where Rohr was shouting at them to stand up and go do some warm up at the sideline. They were just there smiling and reluctant.

It's a dream come through for most of them and They are still basking on the euphoria of qualifying for football's greatest showpiece. They were simply not mentally ready.

So annoying.

AIG07:
This calls for concern

does that mean...

My good friend mujtahida naso

They are world class.. Yes..

They play for big clubs.. yes..

But do you just lie down, and let them match upon upon anyhow?

Super eagles need to fight for naija, and taking shittt from this so called big names...

Match them toe for toe, then let them show us what makes them spectacular , no be say we go just sit down, and let them play average, and still win... Damn it

Btw, Croatia na nonsense, poor team, that will soon be exposed, except they improve too.

safarigirl:
Icon4s, remember yesterday, I said we would concede, we just needed to outscore. them.

As soon as I saw Ighalo in Rohr's line up, I lost faith because I knew that we would not outscore them.

If I say I am not disappointed, I am lying. I rate our team worse than the Saudi team sef, because Russia at least worked for their own goals and scored themselves. We CREATED goals for Croatia, we dashed them two goals and couldn't even pull one back from an honestly, terrible team

So many of us on this thread especially, stuck our necks out for those boys, and both the boys and Rohr slapped us in the face. If they couldn't play for themselves, they could have at least played for those who had faith on them. How do you just lie down and take rubbish?

No fight, no spirit, nothing. We would have done better assembling kids from oshodi and Mushin in that world cup, because those kids would have had FIGHT.

These shaku shaku boys and Rohr, just disgraced themselves. We can blame Rohr for wrong tactics and fielding players in the wrong positions, but it was Etebo who scored an Own Goal and Ekong who gave away a penalty. It was Ighalo who could not fight for balls, it was Shehu who was too scared to cross. It was Moses who was falling over when he needed to stay on his feet, it was Iwobi who shriveled and hid when he most needed to take flight, it was Mikel who failed to show true leadership when he needed to step up

Rohr failed and his boys failed

Rohr repeated it too often that we are the underdogs and that has obviously affected the mentality of the players. It's like calling a child stupid many times. The child would act stupid just to prove you right.

We were like butter. Croatia just sliced through us with their BLUNT knife.

Ever since I've been watching Nigeria lose matches I've never seen something as watery as what I saw yesterday. Rohr has poisoned the mind of the team. He said it in his post match conference that Croatian players play in better clubs than our players.

That obviously defines his mindset.

I strongly doubt our making it out of the group. Now sef Nigerians have killed my dear Marcus the mystic, so no more predictions to anchor my belief.

What an absorbing game the Swiss served up in the end.
Honestly speaking, our team looks a solid 3 levels below what I have seen from teams so far in this tournament.
We are streets behind teams like Switzerland and Mexico in terms of output.
These are countries we should be rubbing shoulders with.

Russia 2018 WC Updates

FIFA'S Budweiser MOTM for Brazil vs Switzerland (1-1) goes to Philippe Coutinho.

Fulltime game stats below...

somehow:
Tried with just 1 weak shot at go? did you see what Mitrovich did against costa rica? a lone striker coming even into his own half to right for balls when none came to him.

Two shots and an header. Watch again.

I no watch what Costa Rica match but if dat what you expected from a lone striker, Ighalo did exactly the same on many occasions.

Please, watch the match again.

edi287:

That's because Emery get sense and isn't trying to force Xhaka to do more than he can handle. Wenger wanted Xhaka to be like Petit.

So is Xhaka a DM?

Wow just finished watching the Switzerland vs BRAZIL match.
I noticed that the Swiss played a 3-5-1-1 formation in the second half.
the Brazilians found it hard to dominate the midfield and even when they got past the midfield they found it difficult to break down the Swiss defence.

How I wish that the overconservative Rohr employed our 3-5-2 masterclass yesterday with Iheanacho and iwobi leading the line.
We would have been singing a new song today

TheSuperNerd:



When you have a DOOR called HallDORsson added to the rugged discipline of their double layered defence amd their entire rigid structure as a team. My good man, it is indeed a big ask.. A herculean task but we must step unto the pitch and try do what those two greats did not achieve with their sides..... BEAT ICELAND.

But to do so we have to get past this DOOR below...

The power of self belief. How do we get it into those guys?


The Nigeria spirit of never giving up seems to be far from our players.

edi287:

That was before. Leno has stagnated majorly. Too error prone now. He's committed the second most errors leading to goals in the Bundesliga since 2014. I don't want Arsenal to sign him

LOL... these Arsenal fans. Who will you prefer Arsenal signs? Allison Backer? Oblak? Those guys are out of Arsenal's play group. You can only hope to get a tier 2 keeper like Leno or Sergio Rico.

realpoacher:
Is it just me or is anyone else noticing that almost all teams so far at this world cup are playing 4-2-3-1 formation


Abi Fifa instructed them to play that formation strictly ni?

Iceland played 3-5-2

Please describe the 2 shots on target you're talking about because the one i watched, i saw no 2 shots on target from Ighalo, only 1 weak header.
You didn't watch the match yet you think you have an opinion?

forgiveness:


Two shots and an header. Watch again.

I no watch what Costa Rica match but if dat what you expected from a lone striker, Ighalo did exactly the same on many occasions.

Please, watch the match again.