tbaba1234: Argentina dominated Austria much more than Germany dominated Uzbekistan but drew.
That's why I rather have us play another team than the Germans. Germans don't have to outplay u to outscore u. They are usually very clinical; will punish naive defending. They earned the name German Machines for their effective and efficient style of play.
The way things are going we could qualify even before we kick a ball. If Senegal or New Zealand fail to win, we could lose our next match and still go through. What a weird game we'd have if Hungary also wants to avoid Germany.
Best 4 of the 6 third placed teams will also qualify making them 16 teams in 2nd Round. Not sure Argentina will qualify with 2 points. It will be a first. They have to win.
P0intBlank: The question is no longer are the Flying Eagles good but how good are they? Where do they rank compared to other flying eagles' teams of d past. Have they flattered to deceive or are they the real deal? I don't read too much into friendly results. The reason being friendlies are what they are - friendlies. Hostilities begin June 1. For me that's d litmus test. Beat Brazil, d jinx is broken and d cup is there for taken. See previous results against South American opposition to see why I'm particular about this match. Mexico 83 Brazil 3-0 Nigeria (Group) USSR 85 Brazil 2-0 Nigeria (Semis) Chile 87 Brazil 4-0 Nigeria (Group) Nigeria 99. Paraguay 2-1 Nigeria (Group) Holland 2005 Brazil 0-0 Nigeria (Group) Holland 2005 Argentina 2-1 Nigeria (Finals) Canada 2007 Chile 4-0 Nigeria (Quarters) Egypt 2009 Venezuela 1-0 Nigeria (Group) Turkey 2013 Uruguay 2-1 Nigeria (2nd Rnd)
We've never beaten them in a competitive match at U-20 or at d Senior level. We've lost all 5 matches against them in d world cup. Why do u think we struggle against South American opposition?
I had my reservations. We can add New Zealand 2015 Brazil 4-2 Nigeria to d list On d positive side at least we scored. Now it's time to know what stuff these guys are made of. We know they are not used to losing. How will they react? Will they implode? Champions pick themselves up.
jieta: The fly eagles should just come back becos there have already won the trophy s tupid team
I said it; human love is fickle. I knew this would happen if they lost. I am neither sad nor disappointed because I managed my expectations well. This was the litmus test. Had they won I would have sang their praises to d highest heavens. It's not over still.
tbaba1234: I do not think this is a valid comparison. Most teams present different players at under 20.check out the mexican, uruguayan and brazilian teams, just a few from under 17.
It is simple, two years later, the under 17 folks are just 18. In developed leagues, they have to compete with 19 and almost 20 year olds . There is a bigger poll to pick from.
In 1987, Nigera went with 17year olds to win the competition with just few additions. Even though, they were good, lack of exposure killed them. The team today is more exposed.
See ur point. True, the pool is larger. But if the players from previous U-17s were good enough they will maintain their spot irrespective of their ages. Just like the Ghanaian team of 1993. My guess is that they lost their spots to better players who still couldn't win the U-20
Messi, Messi, Messi....sorry I'm digressing but can't help it. This guy is a genius. Barcelona lead Athletic Bilbao 2-0 at half time. The first goal: a fine solo goal from Messi
mrham03: i know even with the lost to ivory coast, it was on p.k but from what i saw at the african youth championship against ivory coast where they drew 2-2. A well organized team can cause an upset against them.
Hate to admit it but u've a point. We are yet to beat the Ivorians in three attempts.
TheGoodJoe: Does that make sense to you. A player with high pass completion being useless. Honestly, that is ridiculous. A player with high pass completion is brilliant. How can you categorize it as useless. Are all Fabregas passes towards goals or leading to goal assists. Sometimes you pass back to keep possession. Will that be classed as useless. Honestly, what you are saying does not make sense. Go and watch a full Pirlo vs highlight and count how many times he passes sideways and backwards. Then read your statement.
How do you know if Yeboah's passes have end products or not.
Ok, I respect your opinion. Were we coaches, we would have different philosophies. I wouldn't mind ur players winning the possession stats while I edge the chances created and assists stats. For me it's not how much of the ball u have, it's what u do with it
TheGoodJoe: [b]Men let me tell you about about that goal. The Seydou Keita's free kick goal was from a long range. The Goal keeper of Uruguay Goal Keeper Carini was the best young goal keeper in the World. He won it in the 1997 U20 competition and in 1999.
Before the free kick, Nigerians hoped Pius Ikedia will take the best player award. His amount of completed dribbles was amazing and he had the goal that drew us level with Ireland (Robbie Keane and Damien Duff played in that game).
The news was Keita was the best player, note they knocked us out 3-1. But, Keita did not have a goal.
A penalty will not clinch it. When that free kick came, the usual Seydou Keita would have crossed from that distance but he took a stunning curling shot and he beat Carini.
As soon as it entered, many Nigerians felt we lost for a second time because Ikedia did well.
So Keita's passes did most of the work and that goal crowned it.
I hope you are not equating a long range Free Kick to a penalty.[/b]
Not at all. Scoring a free kick is way harder than converting a penalty. Just making a correction. In football, u have open play and set play. Goals scored from Corners, Free kicks, penalties are classified under goals from set plays.
TheGoodJoe: Are you saying Busquets, Xavi, Xabi Alonso are passing for the sake of it? Because, I do not see the relation. What of Pirlo, Ballack, Zidane? Effenberg, Paul Schools? These guys are respected names because they are great pass masters. Both short and long.
What of our present Flying Eagles team? They are built on the passing philosophy. The best passer of the team is important. That is why the coach talked about cohesiveness of the team. What about Roman Riquelme. I do not get your point.
No top pass master passes for the fun of it. They are integral to the team's success. AC Milan were champions the season before the departure of Pirlo. Pirlo moved to Juventus and they won the league three times consecutively. Do you think Pirlo's passing did not help the team?
Please read my earlier post properly I did not say pass completion is useless. I said pass completion is useless if....Telling me a player did well because he's pass completion is high only makes sense if it had an end product. Passing is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end. The players u mentioned earned a name for themselves because their passes had end products(not just backwards or sideways passing but defense splitting passes that put strikers through on goal)
TheGoodJoe: Saying pass completion is useless tells a lot. You are simply saying the likes of Pirlo, Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Schweinsteiger, Ballack, Busquets, Toni Kroos, Khedira, Thiago Alcantara are useless. Are they or you are just talking. These men do more in pass completion than assists or goals. Most of these names are highly respected footballer.
Guardiola said if he was to return as a footballer, he would return like Busquets.
Guardiola u made reference to said this "I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It's so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition's goal. It's not about passing for the sake of it."
TheGoodJoe: Penalty does not count for Mikel. We are talking scoring a goal in open play. Like Seydou Keita's free kick that beat Carini of Uruguay.
As I said, bring pass completed and completed dribbles. Let us see. Until you bring that, you can not judge. If Yeboah has any of these high and with a brace in the third place, he takes it.
A goal from a freekick is not a goal from open play.
tbaba1234: I remind you of a kid, Auturo Lupoli, Lupoli was scoring for fun at the academy level, could not replicate that at senior level. Even Carlos Vela.... Look at their potential as kids and the eventual level they played at... They were supposed to be considered top stars...
Shining for an academy is completely different from when you meet the senior men...
For now, Success is playing at a far higher level than Iheanacho.
It is difficult to say who d better player is (If it's potential, then it's Nacho). Let Time be the judge of that
LeeCodeman: You see...even the boy knows that things will still happen if he did not come to the World Cup. That's what I'm talking about. They all are stars in their own rights. The camaraderie is there...the respect is there...the unity is there.
Am I the only one desiring the World Cup to start tonight?
That was the same part of interview that struck me. Manu Garba has done a really good job. That's d right orientation. Anyone that's shortlisted should know it's an honour to play for ur country and not the other way round.
TheGoodJoe: [b]Why was he robbed? Because Awoniyi got two man of the match awards?
It does not work like that.
Look at today's match, Bacca will get the praise for all the goals he scored. But, was he the most valueable player? Take out Banega and watch that team crumble. If you get the stats and see Banega's pass completion, you will see no other player did that like him. When you go to completed dribbles, it was Konoplianka.
Awoniyi scored goals but his overall performance was not above players like Nwobodo.
Look at Mikel at 2005 WYC. He was by far the best player of the tournament but he did not score a goal. That is why Messi took it. It takes more than just goals.
Look at Messi and Spain with Xavi in form. They were untouchable as soon as Xavi lost form, Messi and Spain detoriated.
Today Messi gets the praise but the true hero for Barca in the Champions league is Rakitic. It is not a coincidence he was part of the Sevilla Europa league winning team and is in the Champions league finals.
Players like Pirlo gets overlooked because of lack of goals. If they score, they get the award.
I think that is what happened with Yeboah but we need stats before writing him off. The WYC will show more.
Man City did not bring him to the campus by chance. That was done before the AYC.[/b]
Messi gets the praise and rightly so. Messi is a creator and finisher all in one. Messi has more assists than Xavi and Iniesta put together. If u doubt it check d stats. Messi has outscored every world class striker Barcelona has bought from Eto to Suarez. Without Messi, Barcelona would be another Arsenal -playing beautiful football and winning nothing. Pass completion stat is useless if it's doesn't result into chance creation. (key passes and assists). Yaw Yeboah played well but didn't do enough to win MVP.
kannymoore: What of the. Team that made a mincemeat of the supereagles in the Nation's cup of that year.. wasn't it that same U20 team?
Please, abeg...this present flying eagles team is the truth! End of story.
No one is arguing with u. U missed the point. Ghana injected some of the promising players from that U-20 squad into National team, the ones good enough to make the cut. The U-20s did not replace their senior team. That's what we expect from Keshi.
8 of them were at the cup of nations. However, only 4 made it to the World cup.
kannymoore: What of the. Team that made a mincemeat of the supereagles in the Nation's cup of that year.. wasn't it that same U20 team?
Please, abeg...this present flying eagles team is the truth! End of story.
No one is arguing with u. U missed d point. Ghana injected some of the promising players from that U-20 squad into National team. They did not replace their senior squad. That's what we expect Keshi to do.
They were 8 of them at Cup of Nations. However, only 4 made it to the world cup.
TheGoodJoe: The home based clubs of the Super Six tournament were bigger and stronger than our lads of the flying eagles. The flying eagles them.
What of Ghana's team of the 2010 World Cup that comprised of players of their 2009 Under - 20 World cup squad. Did they not do well representing their national team against opponents physically stronger than themthem?
U have a valid point but I think u exaggerated a bit. Only 4 of 23 players in Ghana's 2010 world cup team came from the 2009 U-20 winning team.
Icon4s: That tells u dat age, physique and experience counts in football. A lesson for those that are clamouring for the U20s to form d back bone of a New Super Eagles
I see ur point except that we can't tell how good the Argentinean U-20 side is. That they lost doesn't necessarily mean d Nigerian U-20 side would also lose to Tahiti Senior team.
When the Flying Eagles step out against Brazil at 2am on 1 June in Plymouth, New Zealand, many Nigerians will be expecting their team to beat the accomplished South Americans.
flying-eagles11
The Flying Eagles seem to have – unwittingly – set a standard for themselves that they must live up to. The Nigeria Under-20s have been so good lately they cannot afford to slip up or experience a slump, even if it is brief.
The FIFA U-20 World Cup is supposed to be a developmental tournament where identifying potential world beaters is more important than winning games. But the average Nigerian football fan would rather win now.
Instant glory is all that matters. And, going by their recent results, the present squad promises instant glory AND great potential for the future.
The future can wait though, as far as the average fan is concerned.
But you can’t really blame the fans for expecting so much, as the Flying Eagles are so good at the moment. Most of the boys in the squad were members of the Golden Eaglets squad that won the FIFA U-17 World Cup two years ago and this team threatens to be even better.
The young Nigerians were so superior to their opponents at the last African Youth Championship in Senegal that it would have been a huge shock if they had not won the tournament.
Right from their first match you just knew you were watching champions. And they duly delivered by swatting aside their opponents and winning the title in style.
They have been in devastating form in Germany, where they are preparing for the World Cup.
Perhaps it is no real big deal beating the U-23s of Bundesliga clubs in friendlies, but the margins of the Flying Eagles’ wins over Freiburg, Nurnberg and Hoffenheim suggests a team in fine form. They beat one of these teams 5-0!
taiwo awoniyi2
And the star men have not been disappointing. Taiwo Awoniyi has banged them in at the AYC, during the friendly matches and for the Nigeria U-23s (after Samson Siasia desperately turned to him as the All Africa Games ticket seemed to be slipping), while Kelechi Iheanacho has been on a hot streak for the Manchester City U-21s.
For the young football fan, the odds are stacked in Nigeria’s favour in New Zealand, and this set will be expected to get the country’s first ever win over Brazil at the U-20 level.
But those of us who have been around a little longer know things can go horribly wrong. And this team bears eerie similarities to the extremely hyped 1987 set.
The 1987 team boasted star players. They faced Brazil in their first U-20 World Cup game. They featured players from an Eaglets team who won the U-17 World Cup two years previously.
I was in secondary school back then and us football-loving teenagers of that era had absolutely no doubt Nigeria was going to Canada with a special team.
Despite the 1987 squad’s best player, the supremely gifted Etim Esin, getting shot close to the tournament and not being fully fit, we still expected our ‘golden generation’ to conquer all in North America.
Oliha
Who was going to get past Willy ‘the Cat’ Okpara? Who could stop the free-scoring Adeolu Adekola? Who could face the powerful midfield combination of Nosa Osadolor, Thomson Oliha and Ene Okon?
Perhaps weighed down by the huge expectations from back home, or believing too much in their own hype, coach Chris Udemezue and his players turned out to be a massive disappointment.
Brazil whipped them 4-0 and even Italy, not known to be very good at youth football, beat the Nigerians. The Flying Eagles did not win a single game, crashed out in the first round and returned home utterly deflated.
While hoping that the class of 2015 fare much better than the 1987 set, we should adjust our expectations and focus more on what the future could bring in terms of several players from the squad becoming established senior internationals.
It would help if Nigeria Football Federation officials, former players, pundits and the like do not concentrate on the outcome of the present tournament, instead of what the future portends.
Headlines like ‘NFF official A promises U-20 trophy’, ‘Ex-player B backs Flying Eagles to beat Brazil’ etc only fuel the expectations of fans and heap pressure on the players.
One NFF board member even compared the team to Barcelona and tipped them to reach the final in New Zealand! As far as I am concerned, the success or otherwise of the squad will be determined in three, four years down the line, depending on how many of them make it into the Super Eagles.
If more than four are in or around the Super Eagles in 2018, 2019, then Manu Garba will have done a great job, regardless of the result in New Zealand.
Sometimes, instant success is not the only measure of a team’s progress. [/b]
Spot on! Best write-up I have read on this thread so far. U've spoken my mind. Those of us that have followed football for so long know things can go horribly wrong. History is replete with teams that flattered to deceive. As u know human love is fickle. If that were to happen the same people praising Manu Garba will come here, bash him and call him tactically inept. And claim that their grand mothers would have done a better a job with talents at his disposal. I'm calling for caution because there's a very thin line btw confidence and over confidence.
The question is no longer are the Flying Eagles good but how good are they? Where do they rank compared to other flying eagles' teams of d past. Have they flattered to deceive or are they the real deal? I don't read too much into friendly results. The reason being friendlies are what they are - friendlies. Hostilities begin June 1. For me that's d litmus test. Beat Brazil, d jinx is broken and d cup is there for taken. See previous results against South American opposition to see why I'm particular about this match. Mexico 83 Brazil 3-0 Nigeria (Group) USSR 85 Brazil 2-0 Nigeria (Semis) Chile 87 Brazil 4-0 Nigeria (Group) Nigeria 99. Paraguay 2-1 Nigeria (Group) Holland 2005 Brazil 0-0 Nigeria (Group) Holland 2005 Argentina 2-1 Nigeria (Finals) Canada 2007 Chile 4-0 Nigeria (Quarters) Egypt 2009 Venezuela 1-0 Nigeria (Group) Turkey 2013 Uruguay 2-1 Nigeria (2nd Rnd)
We've never beaten them in a competitive match at U-20 or at d Senior level. We've lost all 5 matches against them in d world cup. Why do u think we struggle against South American opposition?
Sports › Re: Flying Eagles of Nigeria Thread: U-20 World Cup (New Zealand 2015) by P0intBlank(m): 3:57pm On Jun 05, 2015
