Super Eagles of Nigeria, why they lost to Spain.

It will be an impossible task to state the number of Nigerians that watched the yesterday’s match, the one between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Spaniards (Spain). However, those of you that had the time, opportunity and reserved emotional strength to watch it, will agree with me that in as much as the Spaniards are naturally gifted in the ways of football and has a very rare collection of players, the Super Eagles of Nigeria under-performed.

Their under-performance wasn’t because they were scared of their opponents because they wasn’t, nor was it because they lack the basic understanding of what it takes to beat a great assemblage of team like the one we saw yesterday, but because they lack two vital ingredients necessary in every football match – defenders and strikers.

A lot of us can excuse Super Eagles performance on the absence of the likes of VICTOR MOSES, EMENIKE and perhaps IKE UCHE, but the truth remains that there are over 150 million Nigerians out of which could have groomed more strikers and defenders as the Spaniards. Yes, I agree that Super Eagles over the years have improved, I mean, the Super Eagles of the past, not the ones of Kanu Nwankwo, J.J Okocha and co, but that of Osaze Odewinge etc., would have received a minimum of 5 goals when matched with Spain but this present ones gave the Spaniards something to think of when the world cup competition sets in next year.

Some minutes after they suffered defeat, I began hearing comments like, “Gambo means useless, to make a complete sentence will for example go in the line of, Brown Ideye is also Gambo”. Realistically speaking, Ideye did not just missed lots of chances but cocked up way out of the line. Mohammed Gambo that was brought in at the tale end of the game saw a clear chance of giving Super Eagles the needed confidence but couldn’t take it. Faced one on one with goal keep but sent the ball into the wind. The worst of them all is Super Eagles over proud goal keeper, Vincent Enyeama.

Lets start with the game between Nigeria and Uruguay, the second goal that got in was able to get in due to the non-smart choices of the goal keeper. What keeper leaves his goal post, moved about 0.05 kilometer away from it only to fall down on one knee when a confrontation came from the opponent? Same thing was repeated in yesterdays match, Enyeama rushed out way over the line of his post, assuming that he never knew what the consequences of such actions will amount to, wasn’t he supposed to decisively and calculatively fall back while keeping a straight watch on the ball of his opponents leg? But instead, Enyeama dived out the wrong way even before the Spaniard made a move of taking a decision.

Steven Keshi has actually tried. To some extent, he’s brought back the light in Nigeria’s football, upgraded the standard of play as well as give more chance to the home base players as compared to their international counterparts who play for Nigeria. In all, the Super Eagles of Nigeria has come up strong in their play, but if Nigeria doesn’t do something about the defense and striker issue, then they will for long remain where they are today.

Oh and yeah, from what i hear now, Nigerians think Ideye is a spy!