₦airaland Forum

andrew444:
My broda no vex jor my mind comot for there.

Willian start the match but willian was not a starter before that game, and you can see that coutinho had to play MD.

What about neymar he played from the flank but you said he will play behind the strker.

not true, willian started there last 6 matches. coutihno played in the left side of tge 4-2-3-1 and willian started in the right just like i told you. neymar is behind jesus, coutihno keep drifting to the middle.

Coutihno even got the goal from that position, i see iwobi just like coutihno, coutihno best position is the middle but we saw he do it for liverpool and now Brazil from there, our player need to perfrom and forget the excuse of playing out of possession

Andrew444, i was expecting to see raction frim you after seing the brazil line up, we had a very lengthy argument on it or have you forgotten so soon.

goldfish80:
Who kept Iwobi on the bench last year?

iwobi was injured

ChrisKels:
So people still believe stubborn Rohr can turn things around for good? Yawns! Mehn una lye down for bare floor.

I will love to be proven wrong, but until then, we are down and out.

This is looking like our worst ever worldcup outing. Painful, really painful considering we had our best preparation ever

Bros if we don't support our team who will??

I just have this conviction that we will come out of that group and i still believe, even if we draw iceland i will belive till the end

MetalJigsaw:
Mr man I expected you to know that players change technically. Players develop and improve. Players mature and and acquire confidence.

And that is the case with Iwobi. I'm somewhat surprised that a self acclaimed pundit in this forum hasn't noticed this.



Iwobi is at a stage in his career where he's done with learning to be confidence which he was lacking.

and now mikel has reduce in confident and now should be replaced by iwobi, football team is not created by cut and join at every obstacle.

Germany will play with almost same team in there next game, I'm not saying Rohr should use same players against iceland but we forget that iwobi has played more of his professional game in that same position you guys claim to be out of position.

let this team breath, even the so called big team are struggling, we don't have better players than them

MetalJigsaw:
This is so true and intellectual.


Where Are those morons that opposed my stance that some peeps here are tactically better than Rohr? He's just a fortunate white man. Nonsense

i thought is actually early to be intoxicated with alcohol. what do i know?

Daninya11:
Is it safe to say that Gernot Rohr sabotaged us against Croatia as Westerhof did against the Italians in U.S.A 94?.Rohr knows the right thing to do and yet he chooses to do the Opposite...

Since the last game against the Croats, we are yet to see or hear anything from the camp of the S.E...I hope the team has not been disbanded.

If we fail to qualify out of the group, Gernot Rohr must be sacked.
There are so many fine young and talented Coaches who can do better...

Our team has what it take to even top our group. The Croats didn't do anything special that was deserving of a win...

Beating the Icelanders will be a herculean task but with the right mindset,tactics and formation, we can win the game.

I am still Optimistic we can still Qualify...

#SoarSuperEagles

you think Rohr don't need the super eagles to do well to get a better job? why will you think he sabotage us??

MetalJigsaw:
I'm still very pissed right now. I'm trying very hard to get over the heartbreak and disappointment.

Even if he was too stubborn and foolish play the obviously essential 3-5-2 instead of that useless 4-2-3-1, I still can't fathom why he pushed a red hot Iwobi to one side. Iwobi is not a winger. He (iwobi) has shown this each and every time he played ther particularly in the last three games.
Shows Genot Rohr is not a good coach and is too rigid ... in this modern day football.

If Iwobi had played in the AM role and played Tyrone instead of the ineffective Shehu I swear we'd have won that match. at worst a draw.


I almost cried that night... It just seemed like Gernot Rohr deliberately sabotaged us.

even you that always believe iwobi cannot play in the middle and his wasteful when played believe we lost because he play out wide, we didn't loose because iwobi played out wide, we lost because the players.

iwobi plays in the wing for arsenal, he should be used to it, coutihno played just in the position iwobi played and he scored from there and effected the game positively.

all the boys including iwobi played badly

joseph1013:
THE WITCH AND THE SUPER EAGLES
by Leon Balogun

My sister’s best friend’s mom had a best friend, and she was the witch.

She could read auras, or some crazy nonsense like that. I was 19 years old when I was told about her. I was trying to become a professional soccer player in Berlin — I didn’t have time for nonsense. But I had this issue … I was injury prone. Every year I felt like I would take one step forward and two steps back in my career because of the injuries. My sister, who is 13 years older than me and also my best friend, had an idea: The witch. Maybe witch is a bad term. I’m not sure. But she was a little spooky.

When my sister first pitched me the idea, I sort of rolled my eyes, like, Yeah … I’m sure she’ll know what’s wrong with me.

“No, Leon,” she’d say to me, “She sees things.”

“Fine, fine. Let’s give it a try.”

Let’s meet the witch.

She was a middle-aged Russian woman. She didn’t look like much of a witch, or an oracle for that matter. Her eyes walked up and down me as soon as I entered the room. My eyes darted around. She started to talk to me and my sister. It was about nothing in particular really, but I think she was studying me — my energy. Her first diagnosis was that there was an hole in my aura. I was like, Alright, well, anybody could have guessed that.

She said, “It’s on your right side.”

“The hole in my aura?”

“Yes.”

That’s where I had a scar from a bad right-shoulder injury. She had no idea about it, and she had never seen me with a shirt off … she just, felt it, I guess. Now she had my attention.

Then — and I’ll never forget this — she really blew me away.

“Four or five years ago, you lost a person very close to you, but someone who you didn’t completely know, either.”

I don’t think I said anything. She went on about how all people have someone like this in their lives, whether they know them or not. Someone who, no matter the strength of your connection, you will feel connected to — your soulmate, in a way.

She said, “Is this true, Leon?”

“Yes, my grandma.”

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/649ed230-d8357ae4-328f-45e1-819a-b0db084e9967.jpg?width=1000

I was amazed. I hadn’t thought about my grandma that much since she passed when I was 16 years old. But, this lady was right. My grandma’s death had a huge effect on me, and I had never even met my grandma, who lived in Nigeria. That’s the part that was wild to me. My sister didn’t know anything about my reaction to grandma’s passing. This woman, though, she saw it. She told me I had to heal my soul, my heart, before I could become the player I wanted to be.

After we left, I didn’t completely understand if my experience with her was successful. The most important thing that came out of that day was that it got me thinking about my grandma. When I got home, my mind went straight back to the day my dad told me the news.

Because I had never met her, my dad didn’t tell me right when it happened. He actually waited a few days — that’s how distant my relationship was from her. She only spoke Yoruba. So when we talked on the phone when I was little, my dad would try to translate for us. He had never taken me to Nigeria, for reasons he didn’t make clear to me, and I only ever saw photos of my grandma.

When my dad told me, he pulled me aside in our home. I have this vivid memory of the feeling — like, this terrible, terrible feeling of sadness. I crawled up the stairs, sobbing my eyes out. I cried for an hour. My mom had to come to my room and ask me what was wrong … she couldn’t understand why I was so sad, either.

I think, what I knew at a young age was that my grandma represented a part of my life that I didn’t completely understand. I was mixed race. My mom was a German, my dad Nigerian. I was different than the other kids. And I knew that my grandma, and Nigeria, had a lot do with it.

I now wanted to understand more about that part of my life. And because of a witch, I knew how important that part of me truly was.

My dad used to walk three miles every day before school when he was growing up in Nigeria. I knew this because he never let me forget it. It was one of a handful of stories he would tell me about his childhood. He moved to Germany in 1966, learned the language, got his diploma and met my mother. He was the blueprint for immigrants. He made it sound easy — being a foreigner who looked different — but I knew it wasn’t. Because even though Germany is a progressive country, there is that group of people, especially in sport, who still lurk around waiting to knock you down if you’re different.

I met one of them when I was playing U-16 in Berlin, in 2003. I had given up on my dreams of being Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho, so I was playing at center back. The other team had this huge striker. He was bad news. I played really well, and I kept him in my pocket. We were up 1–0 at halftime, and as I was walking to the locker room, the striker kicked the ball at my head. It missed me by about an inch. Woosh. I turned, and he was yelling at me. He was calling me the n-word, using other racial slurs.

Nobody did anything. There were people all around us, and nobody did anything. After the game, while we were still at the park, I told my dad about him kicking the ball at me.

“Leon, you must always be calm. You’re smarter than they are. You’re better than they are.”

Then I told him what the boy said to me. And that, for the first time in my life, was when I saw my dad lose his cool. He had this look on his face. I told him I wanted to go home because Mom said she was making a nice dinner.

“No, we have to fix something.”

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/cfa66c8b-72bf6182-c4ba-4886-86d6-ca82342296f3.jpg?width=1000

So we waited in the parking lot for the boy to come out with his parents. They did. And my dad let them have it.

“Hey, how can you raise your kid like this? Do you know what he said to my boy? We all come here to play football, and you lost, and that’s the game. But your son is 15 — he’s 15! — and he acts like this. I hope that you can one day fill his heart with love, instead of hate.”

Their back-and-forth went on for awhile, and the other parents weren’t very nice. But I will remember what my dad said forever: Love, instead of hate. He was very upset in that moment, but he used empathy over rage. And I began to understand, little by little, how he made being an immigrant look so easy. I think because my dad worked so hard to integrate into society in Germany, it gave me the opportunity to do the opposite and connect with my Nigerian roots.

I never supported the German national team, mostly because I thought they were arrogant and their football was boring to watch. Even in 2006, when Germany hosted and the whole country had World Cup mania — I secretly cheered for them to lose. Because I was a kid, and I was rebellious. And because, even though I felt in my mind that I was just as German as all the other kids, a lot of people didn’t see me like that.

I was always asked, “Where are you from?” Or, “How long have have you been here?”

I would think to myself sometimes, Maybe I was meant to be Nigerian.

Even after I overcame some of the injury issues I had as a teenager and began playing regular minutes in the 2. Bundesliga and Bundesliga, that thing — the part of my soul that I had been told to heal all those years ago — was still missing from my life. In 2014, I was coming to the end of my contract with Fortuna Dusseldorf. I wasn’t sure where I would go next. There was uncertainty in my life, and from time to time I would think of the witch. What did she mean, “heal my soul?”

One night in March, my phone rang. It was a Nigerian number … it was Stephen Keshi, the Nigerian National Team manager. I was sweating as soon as he introduced himself. I wanted him to say the words I had thought about for so long. He spoke for awhile about how he wasn’t totally familiar with me, but he liked how I played.

Then he said it: “I would like to invite you to be a Super Eagle.”

Those words … they meant so much to me. It meant validation for every step of my footballing journey. It meant happiness for my family. Most of all, it meant an opportunity to go to Nigeria.

And that … that was everything to me.

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/49bba59f-balogun_quote-card.jpg?width=1000

When I told my dad the news, he was skeptical. “Are you sure it was the coach?” he said.

And he had a point. I don’t want to speak poorly about the people of Nigeria, but there are some that are real scam artists. They spoil our name. I think that was a part of why my dad never took me back there.

“Yes, Dad, it was the coach. I even listened to his voice on YouTube right after to make sure it was him!”

He warned me about some of the things I could encounter in Nigeria. It wasn’t quite the celebratory phone call I had played out in my head, but that was my dad, always preparing me. But he was proud, I could hear that in his voice. I knew, as much as I understood about myself, about my father, I would learn even more on this trip.

My first impression of Nigeria was probably same as that of any person who has lived in Germany his whole life: Man, it’s hot — heat like I’ve never experienced. I flew down with Anthony Ujah, a striker playing for Koln at the time. He helped me prepare for the trip a bit, too. Tips on what to do, how to act, all that stuff. When we stepped off the plane — the craziest thing was that people knew who I was. Some smiled and asked for photos. I couldn’t believe it. Just as I knew that in Germany I would always be seen as black, I assumed that in Nigeria I’d be seen as another white guy on a business trip. But they knew me, they were happy for me. Maybe I was meant to be Nigerian.

We landed in Abuja, the capital city. We were there for a few days before training started. When we drove to practice that first day, I was listening to music, headphones in. “Nobody Knows” by August Alsina was playing. I like that song because, as somebody with a little fame, people sometimes seem to forget that I go through things, too. As I was listening, I saw a boy on a skateboard on the street. He had a disability. He had to sit on the board and use his hands to get around — something you would never see in Germany. And I just started to cry. I think, because I had seen some of the poverty in the city — in this beautiful city, with wonderful people — that it just sort of put things into perspective for me. It made understand how fortunate I was to grow up in one of the world’s greatest countries, to have the family I did. It was a humbling few days, and that boy’s problems made mine seem so inconsequential.

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/5927726e-gettyimages-966588870.jpg?width=1000

It was a such an important trip for me, such a great trip. I felt a sense of … healing. I felt like I was connecting with a part of me that had been lost — or better yet, never truly found — a long time ago. I love Nigerian food; I love the culture. Everyone is always playing music, laughing … trying to have the best time. I felt at home. And I understood that I could have two homes.

I want to make both of them proud in Russia at the World Cup. Because Germany gave me this opportunity to have success with Nigeria. It is my footballing heritage. I get that. But when I wear that Super Eagles kit … it feels so good. And when we beat Zambia in October 2017 to punch our ticket to Russia, it felt amazing. I remember the final whistle, our stadium in Uyo erupting. I fell to my knees in tears. John Obi Mikel, our captain, came up to me.

“No, no, you don’t get to cry. You don’t get to cry. We’re going to Russia!”

We’re going to Russia. It still feels surreal to say. I just can’t wait.

I know when we get there and I hear the national anthem, I’ll feel that much closer to my family, to my two homes, to my grandma.

And that, more than anything, is going to make the World Cup incredible.

https://storage.googleapis.com/www-theplayerstribune-com/uploads/8b8afc99-leon-balogun-signature-black.png
Leon Balogun
NIGERIA

Source: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/leon-balogun-nigeria?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=worldcup18&utm_term=Balogun

So much passion in his words

ChrisKels:
Who be una? U like quoting people stewpidly. Every one in here knows I am pro Uzoho and Awaziem, reason some people think me a gay. Stop being plain stewpid all the time u quote me or better still, stop quoting me

Chriskels take it easy on your self before you harm your self and really is non of my business if you are gay or not

Bolowolowo:
Read my first sentence again.

i understand now

Icon4s:
Read again. He said Iceland

ok

ChrisKels:
As good as Ekong is, I will choose Awaziem anytime, any day ahead of him. Awaziem is faster, tackles more clinically and always jumps to fight in aerial duels.

see as una they always drift, one mistake and they are calling for his head, bros Awaziem is not even better than omeruo..And the Ref acted like he was waiting for an excuse for pk already, some ref will stop the corner and warn both to the holding

TheSuperNerd:
Uzoho was sent the wrong way.

so you get time to reply someone blaming Uzoho for not catching the pk

Mujtahida:
Whatever the tactics they should play with determination. I have said it from the get go:if they going to lose let them do so gallantly.

that's the summary of it, no matter were they play, they should play with passion. they broke everyone's heart yesterday

Bolowolowo:
What pains me the most is that we have better players head to head with Iceland and that our coach’s tactics and direction will be our undoing. Rohr must utilize a formation that’ll unlock the pace, energy and explosiveness of our team. Is it that hard for him to see this?

we will get it right this time

Eleniyan15:
I never said he was bad but he bleeped himself up by falling down more than rain this season, take it or leave it..Thank God for Etebo and Ndidi or else Nigeria midfield would have collapse like wall of Jericho.


Call a spade a spade moses was a threat but he didn't play like a professional player only Etebo did, ok

he bleeped him self by falling down??

without moses crotia perisic would have roasted shehu, moses was discipline from the blast of the whistle.

if we are to get a goal we know where it will come from, he was rated our best player in some rating and second best in some.

i see nothing wrong in the way he played yesterday, nobody is talking about how mikel want to beat everyone in the pitch even when not necessary

Mujtahida:
Ohhhhhh abeg stop cranking this same point. I explained to you why I said Iwobi should play as a sub. It was a concession to those who always said Iwobi must play on the wings cos Mikel is the best AM. I opined that Iwobi is useless on the wings(and all Nigeria including his experienced uncle except you say same) but since you guys said no, he must play on the wings and as a starter, I said no - wing play is not good for him at all, OK pata pata we use him as a sub for Mikel. Wetin una talk? Una say what if Mikel doesn't get tired? That's to show how rigid you guys were in sticking to your view(and you still do even though the whole nation and Iwobi himself say he's better as an AM)
I challenged you to point out one post where I said Mikel is our best AM as you asserrted. You couldn't do so. now you have gone back to saying I said he should be a sub even though I have explained to you a million times the reason for saying so.
I detest roundabout arguments. If you can't say something new on this point, then fashi.

all this coming up because we lost to Croatia...to me the group is wide open and we can qualify from that group

iwobi need to stand up to be counted when it matters, i don't believe this is a case of playing a player in a wrong position, so many players are always played out of position in country football

Come to think of it, iwobi has played more in the wing in his professional career than in the middle, so how could that be out of position??

we needed to contain ndidi,mikel and iwobi in the team and add another tackler to add grit, perhaps Rohr should have tried the 3-5-2 formation

Sheuns:
Those nations you mentioned don't parade themselves as a football nation remember. We always claim we are a footballing nation yet we never live up to the hype, maybe in the 90s we did. Forget all these crappy foreign players, they will never be of any good to us, BONE them and go local. As for Mikel I've never advocated for him as a good player, he's not GOOD and that's the pure truth. He might do better as a DM but as AM he's ERROR. Let's always learn to tell ourselves the truth. Our league is even much competitive than Chinese league the only lacking thing is adequate funding. Take it or leave it local players are out Best bet.

how can our league be the solution when the best players go on trial even before the season end, lokosa went on trial in Bulgaria

how can our league be more competitive when we no longer go beyond group stage in caf competition

how can our league be good when almost all refree blow for the home team win or draw

How can the league be the solution when the pitch and stadium they are used to is so different from what is obtainable in most world cup stadiums

TheSuperNerd:
Oga... See ehn... Understand something.

This has been the same clichéd argument for the local players. That they will play their lives out, spill blood on the pitch, and rather die on field defending the GWG better. Lol... But all that is just sentimental hogwash.

The local players cannot and will not give what they don't have. And what they don't have is the ability and mentality to cope and fare against top quality opposition on the biggest stage of the beautiful game. WE WILL BE SO ROASTED EHN... IN FACT, THE PASSION WILL MEAN NOTHING AGAIN, because passion without the requisite mentality to compete will only work to kill off that passion the more and make us look like fools.



The best way to go with the local lads thing is to improve our league and channel our focus on stepping up the quality. That way, our local lads can be trusted but right now, it is not even close. So it is not about belief in the local league my man, it is about the huge gap in quality... This is the FIFA World cup... The highest level of the beautiful game. And gathering a bunch of locals motivated to make names for themselves will not be enough I am afraid.

I know some may wanna refer to Iceland but Iceland have some players in top leagues too. And their league is possibly even better compared to ours.

you should have asked him how many iceland players are home base, is Nigeria league better than the iceland league.

Goke7:
Even an amokachi will not lose to that poor Croatian side. Rohr has himself to blame but this is not the first time a german is ruining our national team. Even a Berti vogts could not take us beyond an afcon quarter final. For me am done with foreign coaches.

They lack good knowledge of our players and we are not realising this

is a match and we lost, we can't win it all. we all including me is not happy but calling for the coach head will be too fast.

We can still qualify from these group

kennysville:
You know i have refrained from name callling but it seems you lack the basic ettiquettes of communication. I have watched you engage everyone and it seems you like getting on toes ever since you got on this thread and basically, I am not sure what ur background is or who it is that offended you when you were growing up, but dude, its time you grew up and be matured. There are ways of engaging people without resorting to vituperations.

You need to learn communications 101.
Gerrrit?


Oh.... and grow up pleazzzzzzzze

you sound like an over grown baby, i don't even know you are the same kid i quoted earlier, but if you think you can bring your face me and face me attitude of don't quote me again....then you can quit the thread.

overgrown baby

Mujtahida:
Big faaaaat lie. I challenge you to dig up just one of my post where I said Mikel is our best AM.
I have witnesses ooo cos I've long since last year after the Algeria match where Iwobi was ineffective from the wings began to call for him to be played in the middle. Joebie and I had many discussions on the point. Then some here used to argue:he is not matured, he has no eye for a pass, Mikel is the best in that position etc.

prior to this worldcup you keep saying keep iwobi on the bench, bring him on when mikel is tired, me and some people here asked you what if mikel don't get tired?

you people should quit the i told you so game, we are not out yet....i still believe

Icon4s:
Going into that game, Croatia were the favorites considering the quality they have especially in the midfield.

I was expecting us to be on the back foot for most of the game and thriving on counters but we wrestled the midfield with them.

We didn't create too many chances but Uzoho didn't really make point blank saves either.

We were just unlucky with the own goal. That ball was not goal bound. Etebo's right foot deflected it in.

I expect us to give a better performance against Iceland.

Though Mikel didn't bring his A game but he didnt play as badly as peeps here make it seem. On people blaming Rohr for playing him in the AM position is it not the same player that played the position all through the qualifiers and was hailed by all? He has done well repeatedly in that position so it was a no brainer for Rohr to start him there.

bros i tire, this is the same mikel they said was the reason why we lost our friendlies because og his absent.

pelezico:
No we did not play well. The game was the worst game so far. The Nigerians made it boring. We are going home early. The first game mattered and if we had lost but played well then I'd be optimistic however we played baddddd. These Croatians are not good but they played very cautiously whereas Nigeria played with fear and no imagination at all

as a team we played very well, but we made some mistake, you are sounding this way because you are bitter

edi287:
You and I know that's not happening.

you and who know??

for me nothing is lost, we lost 3 point out of possible 9 and can still get the remaining 6 or 4 which can take us through

ChrisKels:
I made this post on the 6th of june and some empty brains were waging war against me but today all them eyes dun clear Lol

what if we still qualify from this group?

Mujtahida:
Na few of us na. At a point it even looked like it was forbidden for Iwobi to play in the middle.

Sir you wanted him on the bench until mikel get tired, me and icon04 was asking you what if he dont get tired, I'm one of the people that always talked about playing him in the number 10 role too

Mujtahida:
Even us wey no be coach don dey sing this song since last year- play Iwobi in the middle! Save for the Zambia match in Uyo, Iwobi has never, I repeat never been effective on the wings for Nigeria.

I said it immediately I saw the line up that anytime I see Iwobi on the wings I become sad because I know he will not play shingbai.

We are sabotaging our own players.

iwobi could effect a game even from that position, in modern football a player must not play in his preferred wing, i have tried to explain to you how the 4-2-3-1 formation works.

watch coutihno tomorrow, he plays just the same position iwobi plays for Nigeria, left side of the 4-2-3-1, the problem is mikel, in that kinda formation players move and change position. The guy in the middle is always ready to join the point man just like neymar does.

coutihno prefered position is middle but he won't get that but still his effective from there.

Anyone who care should rewatch zam - Nig in Zambia, we played 4-2-3-1 but mikel played deep with onazi and Nacho played in the middle and iwobi on the left and Simon moses on the right and ideye played 9.... they were very fluid and interchanged very well

AIG07:
It got to a time Moses was like Shehu move make I pass to you.

But did you know what Shehu kept doing.? He kept standing in front of Moses and staring at the ball.

and they still blame Moses

Mujtahida:
Bros, I'm I like Ebuehi but this reasoning that Ebuehi would have salvaged the situation is too simplistic to me.

he would have