₦airaland Forum

mrwilliams9:
What I’m seeing from all these matches is we need to be clinical. If you get 3 chances, convert them and do it quickly. When you kill the game early, you kill the opponent’s spirit to fight.

I like that our defense is solid but holding a 1-0 for 60+ mins still keeps the opponent in it. Don’t get one goal and just sit back. Finish the game

if you can't score nko, holding to your lead is also part of the game and a display of your awareness and discipline. Tournaments are for the brave

isan:
Mali couldn't deal with those area balls into their box

Then they were simply not good enough

This is why when a team like Nigeria decides to park the bus and throw away the key we go dey complain say na terrorist football.

Mali had no business conceding after that 1 goal lead, simply lock shop and send the CIV home dem dey form skill for knock out stage, ok nah

Odunayaw:
I just remembered the have a junta as head of state. Koboko may be shared

they need that koboko, especially for harassing the ref at the end after giving you a penalty and a red card to your opponents.

minfelix:
I am smelling a certain “Di Mateo” of chelsea 2012 in this CIV coach…sacking a head coach and having a makeshift coach going all the way to the semifinals..guys trust me CIV will edge DRC…the best team to play them in the Final is Nigeria…if they meet SA/CPV its gonna be an easy win for them

CIV are the favorites now, which is good for us in a way.

safarigirl:
I'm not even sure the Champions League can give you this sort of drama.

Do you know how much drama we have had in this tournament? And the officiating is still 97% perfect. UCL will have shady calls, AFCON barely has any.

You cannot get this kind of drama in another tournament

I can't even fault this. I agree 100%

Marjoribanks:
The Malians look like a real contender.

I am happy they are out.

The Ivorian team doesn't look that great. But like I said previously they possess a great bench

They road their luck tonight again.

This is no longer luck o, something dey that team that's dangerous

safarigirl:
This tournament is the best thing football has had to offer in years

Better than the World Cup even. It is wild!

When Mikel said Afcon is like the UEFA Champs League, I thought he was joking, the guy knew what he was saying

TheSuperNerd:
To be honest, this is undeserved from Ivory Coast. But it is what it is.

That foul on the Malian player before CIV equalised is being brought to the fore. I understand the Malian frustrations but they also did themselves in. Defend!!!

playing against the host at this stage of the competition is an uphill task, you play against 13 persons including the ref and the crowd. Mali ought to know better and fate was initially in their favour when CIV was down by one man but they still lost the plot

TheSuperNerd:
Mali possibly remains the worst African team with big name players in Europe.

Their mentality as a team remains so low. Generation to Generation, same problem. It must be genetic.

loosing a pk and conceding late is a bad omen!

dem wan beat referee

field don scatter

e don happen

chrisooblog:
Ghana too went through their period of instability and they have proven they have talent over the years.

you need to find out what has happened in Sudan and Ethiopia, Ghana does not come close at all. The popular song 'We Are the One' by a compendium of American singers in the 80s was to raise funds for children dying of hunger and starvation in Ethiopia.

mrwilliams9:
Correct! That’s why I don’t give Egypt as much credit for their 7 AFCONs. Their first two were when most of us be farmers. They were playing against part time fishermen and carpenters.

Ethiopia and Sudan won AFCONs in the early 60s. In what world do they want to try winning AFCON in this day and age.

don't you think civil wars and political instability might have affected the development of their football over time? Both countries have seen shege pro max in terms of wars, hunger, drought and famine

yinkeys:
Another comeback from Ivory Coast again
Looks like they’d play yet another set of penalty kicks
Nigeria take note
If your opponent equalizes really late in the game it’s not good

It will be difficult to stop CIV if they win tonight, Mali and Senegal for don turn them into 'abami eda'

Odunayaw:
Mali and choking

This is why they always fall to more experienced and bigger teams, I hope they are lucky tonight if not na big time mess up

These Malians should be flogged publicly if they lose this game, shey na this team some people dey talk say good

Mali na yeye team afterall

Omo see goal

mostob:
CIV will later win this match if Mali doesn't take their chances. You don't miss such PK at this stage of a tourney.
I like the ref sha... the way he first of all shook Kossonou's hand before awarding him a yellow card eh...

Mali mess up with that pk, civ has no business in this afcon with the rubbish they are playing they never deserved to come this far after all.

I hope Mali will step up in the 2nd half and take these carpenters out of Afcon

I said it red card don dey

If red card no Dey this game I will be surprised

These Malians serious so

ChrisKels:
Speaking to reporters at the post-match press conference, Peseiro said: "Before the break I called Iwobi and Onyeka, asked them who is more tired so I can bring in one substitute. No one said I'm tired.

"After five minutes Ekong came to tell me Onyeka cannot continue. Ekong informed me you must change Onyeka.

"From my bench, it's better I keep Iwobi, put Yusuf, and Onyeka goes out but I know all the players want to complete the game.

"I was angry in that moment. Two times Ekong said Onyeka is tired due to the pain in the shoulder. But I asked him five minutes before, not 10, 15 or 20 minutes, said he was okay, it's happening in football.

"The captain on the pitch can inform me about some situations - some players tired, some players feeling some pain."

You see and some people will be blaming the coach for not substituting players and for the ones on the bench. If players are not willing to be subbed, do we want the coach to start having individual issues with the players? make we reason this thing well o

Again I commend the players for their commitment to the game, it's been a long time since I have seen such zeal from our national team players to go all the way for their country even when they are tired or injured. Great team spirit and patriotism.

minfelix:
i dey tell you..e get one of sanni kaita interview that 2010
press : did you touch the player
sanni kaita: “i doesn’t touch him”😂

ha ha ha gbagaun

minfelix:
bros chill first oo, let them win the trophy before you ask Nigerian fans to “die the silly take” ooo..if we jah for semifinal to 3rd place, the anti-foreign base player fans here will surface their heads oo

but on a lighter note, when these boys grant interviews, it's sweet hearing their English, there was a time in those days when some of our players dey grant interview omo na so we go just dey dodge bullet

safarigirl:
I could not believe my eyes when I saw that lineup, and then the view got bleaker when I realised he had no plans to field Iheanacho.

One of the most mind-boggling coaching I have ever seen from a SE gaffer, and to do that against Ghana was simply unforgivable. Ghana wasn't even decent, they were ass! We had a team that deserved a World Cup berth and he threw it away with idiotic decisions.

abeg just forgive Eguavoen, he has taken us to the Afcon semi-finals before.

Your vex no be small o, if you meet Eguavoen for road aaaaah

Koboko99:
“Foreign born players are too soft and don’t have the physicality for African Gidigbo football”

I hope you guys can see what the foreign born players are doing for us at AFCON. Now we can finally die that silly take

I must admit, these players have been awesome and proven most people wrong. But let's look at it closely, it's a new trend we are seeing in Afcon, with Cape Verde, Mauritania, Guinea, E-Guinea, Mali, and DRC, including the north Africans and other traditional big soccer-playing countries all parading foreign-borns, the reason the Afcon has been of a very high standard and bridging the gap between the perceived smaller and bigger soccer playing nations in Africa. This trend has come to stay and we will see more foreign-borns opting to play for their countries of origin. Good for the game.

M7even:
Lol for matching their AfCON trophy and not surpassing it. An AFCON trophy that they have last won in 1982. And we are just about equalling. Give the little country the flowers it deserve, I mean how could the likes of segun Odegbami, Christian Chukuwu, Steven Keshi, and JJ Okocha play so many years and still deliver only 3 AFCON for us. I feel we should easily be on 9 AFCON trophies by now.

Lots of things usually work against us in the semis and finals of most afcons we have played, apart from players' errors, biased refs have been huge problems for us. You need luck most times in the semis and finals, look at the way countries like E-Guinea, Guniea Bissau, Cameroon and even Angola kept kicking our players up and down with no strong bookings and red cards from refs in this Afcon. But for the strong mentality of our players, we would have exited this tournament by now. If Oshimen had not used his intelligence to call the attention of the ref in our game against CIV, we wouldn't have been given that penalty. Look at the game of drc vs guinea, two soft penalties in the game. There was a clear handball against Angola the ref looked away. These are factors that can ruin a team's chances to lift an afcon no matter how good they are. Even VAR has been added to the mix.

Oboto700:
I don't need ur opinion..goal keeping crisis.. even before our game with Cameron you guys never believed in this team.. stop making excuses for your nonsense analysis.

You’re a kid go and play with your toys or learn from mature guys here, even with yesterday performance many people here are still pointing out errors in team oya begin to abuse all of them one by one, nonsense

Oboto700:
you guys should be ashamed of yourselves already.. yes.. you were all thinking this team won't win any Match in this tournament..u should be ashamed.. nonsense analysis

You will just have bp for nothing, we had a goal keeping crisis before the tournament and you expect the team to do wonders. Try and be more reasonable and cultured. That people have been proved wrong is not a trophy for you