₦airaland Forum

TheSuperNerd:
As good as My Maroc are, they have a benchwarming Issa Diop starting in their defence and even emerging as their best CB at this WC so far. Calvin Bassey benches Diop comfortably at Fulham.

Sometimes, you read some agenda takes and you just know they rather take delight in belittling themselves coz they feel admitting that Nigeria is actually a strong side is delusional and non-objective.

Even some respectable social media accounts are pushing such nonsense! The loss of Senegal and DRC yesterday was really a blow to many egos ready to pounce on a country not in the competition 😂 shebi when Senegal was leading 2-0 one of us here don conclude we are now behind Senegal and Morocco omo agendas were really shattered last night.

mekabuachi:
Person don talk am for Twitter ooh
Buchi laba say lookman no go make their team list.
Ba Senegal lose na Nigeria dey chop straay bullet😂

😂 mad people everywhere

Makes me happier for the loss of Senegal cos all the agenda just get k leg. I don hear sermon tire today how we should be accountable for the loss!

Blueelf:
Someone said Femi Azeez won't get into Senegal 40 man squad list

Lolll, I laugh sha

I saw it on X

If Senegal won last night, dem for say even Lookman no fit make their 40 man list too.

minfelix:
Algeria vs Switzerland, hmmm make i no talk

Anything fit surprise person at this stage?

minfelix:
Algeria vs Switzerland
Ghana vs Colombia
Egypt vs Australia
CPV vs Argentina


oh father lord🤣🤣🤣

I'll fancy both Algeria and Egypt, but hey wetin our eyes never see

minfelix:
Offcus everyone will handle their affairs, e no still remove am say Africa dey mostly jonz on this things more.
After Europe, Africa has the second highest number number of participants…in r16 we should be having half of the CAF reps,but iffa hear say that one happen…Like this na only 1 or at best 2fit advance to that R16….Even with Germany and Holland wey jah they will he having like 7teams in r16.
if DRC get sense England no suppose smell r16
if CIV get sense Norway no suppose smell r16
if Senegal get sense Belgium no suppose smell r16
we suppose to get like 5CAF TEAMS in that r16(plus Morocco and possibly Egypt m)

They are simply not good enough; Belgium and England were easy prey! In fact, they were both frustrated in the games; it was just moments of brilliance from their big players that were the defining breakthroughs. CIV no get striker so how will they win? Senegal was throwing away chances, and I will say it again: Congo is all power, no brain, so forget it.

Na where all their strength reach all the teams stop!

minfelix:
Why are you all just emotionally being triggered by the mention of this common menace that faces us?…..The Japan you are calling have experienced more successes or have covered more ground than all Africans put together especially black african at the world cup level by qualifying to knockout stage for like 6 different editions(No african team have eqauled that)…before we dreamed to reach Semifinals Korea has already broken that record.

Now to the emboldened, Baba its an African problem, and its not only on this thread they are discussing it…try dey observe posts by bloggers on Facebook,Tiktok,Twitter,Instagram..everyone is complaining thesame thing about African on videos,text and comment section….we here in Nairaland are just adding technical analysis and being elite with our dispositions.

BABA its majorly an AFRICAN THING from our Powerhouse to Minnows(if we be Haiti, Tahiti and Curacao then no issue) we are Africans with history of world class players, we should be gracing knockout stages like water and reaching Semifinal and Final like water, how can we do this is by avoiding this annoying defeat to some of these un-inform European teams, see as Paraguay take pursue Germany(if na Africa we go surely bottle that lead)…on no account should an entire African team not advanced to knockout stage just as we witnessed in 2018 world cup(very shameful edition where all 5 African powerhouse teams exited group stage. very very shameful!!)
And you same make people no talk🤣🤣🤣

Let every nation and FA handle their affairs abeg.

Germany and Holland are out, and European teams too are struggling should we say it’s becoming an European problem? If Belgium had lost yesterday would we call it an European problem, please…..

That Belgium is also weak why is no one talking about that

AndSunGorilla:
Abi one time when Belgium used 'Goliath' to beat Japan at the world cup towards the end of the game nko?

You no know say Japan na black nation too!

Odunayaw:
I shall continue exercising my right to schadenfreude aka bad belle, for those of us who prefer the higher linguistics.

That said, it's doublespeak to reject Pan-Africanism only to invoke "Africa" whenever these teams lose.

These ten countries are not representatives of Africa in a collective identity sense but geographic sense. They are sovereign national teams. NT football teams are not valid proxies for the psychology of an entire continent.

Critique their tactics or mentality if you wish, but inferring an 'African mentality' from the performances of a handful of national teams is an essentialist error.

When European teams repeatedly lose on penalties, no serious analyst speaks of a "European mentality." When Asian teams implode defensively, no one infers an "Asian psyche." The analysis remains at the level of the team, coach, or federation.

We must instinctively understand that football outcomes belong first to teams, not continents.

Let us return to the important thing, badbele! Amen?

My brother o ti su mi o!

You know if those countries win yesterday na Nigeria go chop all the beating for this thread! Now they lose na we go still chop beating.

Nehruvia:

Oga be calming down and let us hate in peace. Some of you in this thread like making everything logical and academic. Sometimes allow people to be irrational and petty abeg. Allow people to hate if they want to hate. How does it affect you, if you're not secretly a Senegalese or Congolese in disguise? Why should we feel bad for the foolishness of African teams in a tournament we didn't even participate in?

Abeg allow people to hate in peace. Let's stop all this fake shalaye. Fronting for other African countries no go add shimgbai to your bank account!

If both teams had qualified yesterday baba for come with epistles how Nigeria is lagging behind but since both countries lost it has become a black man problem 😂 shior

NasirIbnLaAhad:
Stop trying to bait me into a different, senseless argument. The points I've been trying to make to you lot is very simple:
1. Stop making people feel bad for feeling bad for Senegal and other African teams, especially since we suffer from the same problems
2. This is the perfect time for us to look inwards and examine why black nations always lose in this exact same manner and find a way to stop it in the future.

Now why on God's green earth is this such an issue here? Is this a hot take now?

Keep Nigeria out of what befell the teams last night. Is that too much to ask for?

Are black nations the only one booted out so far? Germany and Holland are black nations Abi, oh God!

NasirIbnLaAhad:
That's the third time you've swung at a point I never made. And for what it's worth, yes, If it were Nigeria blowing a two-goal lead in 80 minutes, I absolutely would be writing epistles about NFF incompetence, because that's what you do when it's your own house on fire: you interrogate it. It's called accountability.

And here's a novel thought. Some ideas are not mutually exclusive. Their loss is their responsibility, and it's also useful information about a continental tendency we've displayed ourselves. Both things are simultaneously true. Refusing to look at both because you'd rather just enjoy the schadenfreude, and mocking others who do is the fastest way to make people question your self-awareness.

I’ll take you more seriously if you write an epistle on how corrupt Senegal or DRC is cos they were the ones who played last night. Don’t find an excuse to drag Nigeria into it 😂

Nigeria was not the one that played last night why must we be sober or the continent be accountable for it? Makes no sense

Odunayaw:
Nothing to applaud in Cape Verde football asides guts that grace has rewarded. They're DRC lite really.

As a first timer, Cape Verde has excelled with the kind of group they were in. This is not DRC first time at the World Cup. For donkey years they couldn’t qualify

NasirIbnLaAhad:
You're switching lanes on me. CAF pitch conditions, refereeing scandals, the Libya nonsense, none of that has anything to do with why black African teams blew multi-goal leads yesterday. That's an entirely different conversation, and you know it.

And every nation carrying their own shit is exactly my point, and not a rebuttal to it - which you seem to think it is. I'm not asking you to feel sympathy for Senegal or drape yourself in continental grief. I'm saying: watch what just happened to them, because it's a preview of what happens to us the moment we're in that position again. You don't have to like your rival to study his mistakes so you don't repeat them. So call it whatever you want, mentality, game management, bottle, but pretending it's purely isolated per-country and has zero relevance to Nigeria is the actual delusion here. We've shown the same symptoms. 2018 didn't happen to Senegal, it happened to us. That's not CAF's fault, that's not a bad pitch, that's players losing composure with the finish line in sight, same as what just happened three times in a row this week. If your response to seeing that pattern is "not my problem, let them rot," you're choosing to learn nothing from a free lesson that just got played out in real time on the biggest stage in football.

And please quit with the strawmen. Who said anything about taking the fall for other country's decisions? Nobody said Nigeria falls when Congo falls. I said the underlying disease -- folding under pressure with a lead in hand -- isn't unique to whichever federation is currently getting mocked. It's shown up too many times across too many different African teams, under different coaches, different eras, different CAF administrations, for it to be a coincidence specific to "their" bad decisions. When the same failure keeps recurring across unrelated teams, that's a pattern, not a series of unrelated accidents.

You want to rejoice at their misfortune because of how Nigeria's been treated? Fine, that's your right. But don't confuse enjoying their downfall with understanding it. Laugh all you want. Just don't be shocked when we're the ones 2-0 up in a tournament knockout and it slips through our fingers exactly the same way, because we spent this week celebrating and pointing and laughing at others instead of taking notes from their gaffes.

We have fallen before so it’s nothing new when others fall they should take their own responsibility not us! Thank you

The problem here is so many of you feel these teams are way ahead of us because we didn’t qualify now we see their errors like ours we are trying to be diplomatic. If it was Nigeria you of all people will come here with all sorts of epistles blaming the nff and how corrupt we are as a nation but now it’s those African teams in question, we must also look at ourselves too, 😂 shit!

mablie:
My brother,this your post is very unfair and harsh to the African teams in this tournament.
Personally,excluding Tunisia,every African team has performed FANTASTICALLY WELL even the teams that got eliminated,were competitive.They were never steamrolled by their opponents.
I understand your frustrations but out of 200 plus football playing countries at Fifa,nine from Africa are the top playing 32 nations on earth...ON EARTH.
Abeg,lets be humble enough to give credit to those who deserve it

😂 round 32 was the initial number of teams that qualified for the World Cup before now so it’s nothing to celebrate abeg! The World Cup is for the elite teams in football!

minfelix:
As African let break away from it…2018 world cup Korea led Germany 1-0, in the die mins Germans piled up the pressure and were looking for an equalizer, Korea still found a way to finally bury them with a late counter 2-0…
This thing is not about “hyper-pontification”

Our problem as african is to remain focus…the chance for the most hyper informed black african team losing a match they had in control is almost 95%.. now flip to Asian history of when they are mostly inform against a not too inform European opponent….If Senegal was a Japan on 2-0 or Korea on 2-0 (especially against these European) bro forget that game is a wrap up…..

The World Cup is only revealing that some of these players we think are world class because of what we saw in Afcon are not! Apart from Amad and may be diomande Ivory Coast no really get players like that

Senegal too has been exposed. Mane should retire he has tried. I gave Senegal a benefit of a doubt after the first game but after that looks like they are just a bit above average. Congo na just power no brain! Don’t even mention Tunisia. Only Cape Verde has shown some guts by not loosing any game in the first round. Morocco just continuing from where they already are, no fake life. The others as usual making the numbers. This is the true state of African football.

minfelix:
Asin eehn…Its either they stick to 16teams, 32 teams or 64 teams…..all these best loser nonsense na rubbish.
Portugal use best loser win Euro 2016, CIV use best loser win Afcon 2023. In a tournament you have 3games to prove yourself that you worthy of a trophy…[b]nothing coming to form one nonsense fairytale ru[/b]n

Which kind yeye fairytale people wey no allow Nigerian fans enter stadium for final. Shebi we don see their fairytale now! 😂 the same boy wey use injured Aina shine see open net throw away ball

mablie:
Lol
At the 2014 world cup,the narrative was African teams could not defend setpieces.
This year's edition,African teams let in goals at the dying minutes.I cannot wait for the 2030 narrative.
My own be sai,African teams lost their matches because they lost their matches just like every other teams but Africans (particularly Nigerians) to dey hyper-focused on anything African so they dey always read into things wey no exist.This is another form of narcissism.
What happened in the Dr Congo vs England match is similar to what occurred in the Japan vs Brazil match but you don't see anyone hyper-pontificating on the latter do you?

God bless you jare, Nigerians and their pan-Africanism nonsense na the same pan-Africanism make SA dey pursue Nigerians everywhere

NasirIbnLaAhad:
I'm reading some posts here and I'm just shaking my head. For some reasons, we Nigerians have deceived ourselves into thinking we're far and above every other black nation in the world. Newsflash: what happened to Senegal and DR Congo yesterday has happened to Nigeria before, could have easily happened to Nigeria if we qualified, and can still happen to Nigeria in the future if we don't take caution and keep missing the wood for the trees.

No one is saying you shouldn't hatewatch other African countries. Hey, I hate South Africa as much as the next fella. I never wish Ghana well. And I understand the logic that most African countries don't like us anyway. Nobody said you have to love these countries in the first place. Nobody's asking you to wave the pan-African flag and cry for Ivory Coast or Congo. That's not the problem here, and pretending that's the problem lets you both dodge the actual painful truth behind black football, Nigeria included.

Senegal didn't lose because Africans "don't like Nigeria" or because of some cosmic karma for the last AFCON. They lost because they built two and three goal cushions against sides they were clearly the better team against, and then mentally checked out. That's not a "them" problem, that's a continental problem, and if you think Nigeria is somehow immune to it because we're not the ones who blew the lead this time, you are lying to yourselves. Go back and actually rewatch 2018 against Argentina. Or 1994 against Italy. Go back and rewatch how we've managed second-half leads in tournament knockouts more times than either of you want to admit. This is not foreign to us. We have literally done this. The only reason we're not the fourth name on that list this week is because we didn't even qualify for the damn thing, not because our mentality is built different.

That's what makes the little celebration some of y'all are having here so trite and short-sighted. You're cackling from the sidelines like Nigeria has some superior winning gene that Senegal and Ivory Coast lack, when the honest truth is we are easily one of the ambassadors of drama and chaos football in Africa. If anything, this World Cup should be studied, not mocked. Every single one of these collapses is data. It's proof that African teams, ours included, still don't know how to see out matches when it matters most, still get rattled the moment the opposition smells blood, still lack whatever cold, ruthless closing instinct European and South American sides have built into their DNA. That's the conversation worth having. Not who "doesn't like us," not who clapped when we lost to Congo, but why the same failure keeps repeating itself across different federations, different generations, different coaches.

Hating other African teams is your prerogative, but ranting that others rightly feel bad about Africa's poor performance, or using their collapse as proof you're somehow better positioned than other African nations is just pure delusion on your part. We have the exact same disease, we just haven't been given the stage to show it this time around.

The earlier we start treating this as a serious problem the better for us. And the earlier we start brainstorming ways for Nigeria to get around this curse of Sub Saharan Africa at the World Cup, the better.

Who has said so here that we are far ahead of every black nation? Bro, there's no continental problem here, as every nation will have to carry their own shit like we are carrying ours too.

The real continental problem here is CAF, which is hindering fair play in the game in Africa. How does one explain the kind of pitch we played on in SA during the qualifiers? Till today, we are not sure if Aina still wants to play because of the injury he suffered from that shit. See how the last Afcon ended; is that not a disgrace? Who's responsible for that? See what our players went through in Libya during the Afcon qualifiers, yet many even in this forum blame us for our misfortune, so allow us to rejoice when we see misfortune befall others too. It's up to every African country to get their shit together on how they manage their games, cos whey they win it's the country itself that reap the fruit not the continent. Let's stop this continental sympathy and gaslighting that always wants us to take a collective fall for a particular country's decisions on the pitch of play.

We will treat our own problems, but not on the basis of trying to be emotional about the poor decisions of others.

Miggs:

Many of them were actually celebrating the fact that Nigeria got cheated in those games.Remember when SA took the SE to a potatoe farm to play a world cup qualifier in 2025 and got a draw?Other africans were ecstatic and said their FAs should do thesame whenever they play nigeria too.Nigerians have no idea how deeply other africans hate us...no idea.When i was in asia if you hear what other africans were saying about nigerians to the citizens of our host nation your jaws would drop but guess the people they would run to for help whenever they got into trouble?Nigerians.Let me not reveal inner thoughts about other africans before i get traced and arrested for h-a-t-e speech

Truth is, the off-the-pitch antics African teams are engaging in on the continent are finally catching up with them at the World Cup. Morocco's own is still coming. See how Tunisia disgraced themselves, but in Africa dem form Jacky chan. Phew

minfelix:
That round 32 na glorified group stage, Fifa just wan give minnow chance to play worldcup so they inlcuded all those Iraq, Curacao,Haiti just to come and stress and play 3matches….real knockout na round 16(world top 20teams/25teams are the real world cup material….30downwards na minnow material for world cup🤣🤣🤣🤣

Real nonsense, Round 32 is just a fake way to make Otondo teams feel they made it out of the group stage. Senegal, after losing their first two games, had no business going past the first round. The 32-nation format is still the best, where the first and second teams in the group proceed to the next stage. Reason I also want Afcon back to the 16-nation format. This idea of best losers making it to the next round na scam.

In 94, the Italians we met in the second round made it as one of the best losers; imagine we met another team, perhaps. The idea of giving teams who performed badly in the first round doesn't cut it for me at all.

minfelix:
Thats why i was watching those mumu banku republicans playing nonsense and scraping a useless draw, some hypocrites Nigerians here come dey follow me yarn nonsense…congratulations to Ghana yen yen yen

Dem go collect for Colombia hand today with their banku tactics

Na England wey play rubbish Dey even give Ghana and Congo hope. Nonsense

Miggs:
I do not understand it either.It boggles my mind.Do nigerians really not realise other africans do not like us at all and celebrate our downfalls?From afcon 2024 final loss ,nasty comments about osimhen&lookman when they won apoty,defeat to dr congo at the playoffs,defeat to morocco at afcon 2025 even losses at grammy awards?or is it because we have thesame skin color or from thesame region?these people do not see us the way we see them.my heart is as cold towards them as it is towards the arabs

We were even cheated on some of these games. Ivory Coast used all their home advantage against us in 2024 same with Morocco in 2025 and the dubious ref, Ghanaians celebrated and gave that dubious ref a heroic welcome. DR Congo used mercenaries and ineligible players in the playoffs. Yet the whole continent celebrated our downfall. The Moroccans walked out of the hall when Lookman got the APOTY.

Yet I should cheer African teams at the World Cup na thunder go fire their left yansh. Rubbish.

minfelix:
I watched an angry Senegalese fan on facebook raging, so i was just hearing him call “Nigeria Nigeria, im like wgy this one dey call our name na🤣🤣…so i picked that part of his voice calling Nigeria Nigeria to go translate on my voice/Video translator

"Les gars, sincèrement Belgique on le on le mérite. C'est pas le ouf. Je viens à la coupe du monde par rapport à nous. Mais le Nigeria ils mettaient plus leur place quand même. On était pas"

→ "Guys, honestly Belgium deserves it. It’s not that crazy/insane. I’m coming to the World Cup because of us. But Nigeria would’ve taken their place though. We weren’t..."

"Cent-vingtième penalty."*
→ *"120th minute penalty."*

Hey, Felix! the man in the video vocal background;
He’s basically saying Belgium deserved the win, it’s not surprising, and he thinks Nigeria would’ve done better than Senegal did.



🤣🤣make them leave us alone oooo🤣

That’s why am happy they lost 😂

Now all those talk of we are behind Senegal go calm down. Baba God thank you o 😂

SymphonyRad:
How noble of you, as for me I feel numb to every African team in this tournament so I could care less if all of them go home. Only African team I'm somewhat emotionally locked in for is Cape Verde, and that's because I always love a Cinderella story in every big tournament especially for tiny debutant nations punching above their weight. Besides Cape verde I dey no follow una do all that African solidarity cause they don't really like you as a Nigerian anyway.

💯 am with you on this even Cape Verde treat Nigerians like shit when folks go there for tourism.

I wonder why we Nigerians are getting emotional over this. Besides the way these African teams perform badly the better for us as a country for some bragging rights. The teams themselves are feeling overconfident so it’s good the way they are being humbled and I expect more defeats. Only Morocco seems to be an exception cos they look most disciplined African team.

Odunayaw:
Finally saw the two goals that drew the game. It's either fate is a cruel joker or Senegal is just under a spell from a newly initiated witch!

Okay y'all have shat the bed. Hold on for a shootout. No, they bent over for some Belgian ass smack

This was the easiest match Senegal had among the three Europeans.

Heaven Dey look you Dey shake head 😂

Dannyxy:
Silly to loose two goal lead, see how all the hard work ends…

Very silly original otondos

From the 80th minute all they needed to do was to keep possession and slow the game down but they underrated the Belgians think they were a conquered team

Senegal going……..

3-2 thank you Belgium

Ref give this penalty let these folks go home jor

Odunayaw:
I haven't seen the replays of the goals but abeg what happened? Did the Belgians use their hands? WTF is two goals in barely 3 mins!!

The Senegalese were careless; they thought it was over and were already feeling overconfident. The second goal by Belgium was funny; the Senegalese keeper finished his team.

TheSuperNerd:
I wish I fit konk you. You and Mujtahida just dey vex person And I thought my hategame was Number 1... I am being humbled by Y'all😂😂

Truidstarr, na u I kuku blame for all these... Very Wicked Prediction. I just dey look una...

Apart from Cape Verde, who unfortunately will be mauled by Argentina am hate-watching all African teams; they must all go beck home

TheSuperNerd:
May Thunder cancel this. Goke how far naa... this is really embarassing for west african football. Abeg!

Senegal should not fall hand

For our inability to qualify, let everyone come home. African solidarity in the mud.

Thank you for your attention to this matter