Nigeria vs South Africa (1-1) Ekong, Mokoena 4-2 PK

[Bigpokey24]

see dem folks run dem mouth like this..smh

[Tbite]

You guys might find this hard to believe but I had a feeling Ola Aina would miss. My initial gut feeling told me he would miss (and I have a pretty good gut feeling). The way he strikes the ball in general is not clean.

There are some players we have with very suspect ball hitting technique, Zaidu, Onyeka, Ajayi, Aina. Iwobi is somewhere in the middle. Only a few like Lookman, Osimhen, Iheanacho etc. know how to strike a ball properly.

I don't mean penalty ability, just how they hit a ball in general, which does translate to penalties to a degree. But then I convinced myself after that 5 second gut feeling, that he is otherwise good on the ball, and then he skied it.

Some of them don't wrap their foot around the ball properly and don't know how to balance their centre of gravity, some of them dig under the ball too much. Some of them like Iwobi didn't innately know how to put laces through the ball and relied too much on sidefooting. Now he has learned a bit more how to put laces through, but struggles to balance it with accuracy....

[Mr. Piffington]

South Africans no care about soccer like that. It's Rugby thst gets them hyped man or woman.

Yup. Which is why it's not a true rivalry, soccer is not their national sport like it is ours. Nigeria's rivals are Cameroon and Ghana. I don't feel anything when we beat SA in soccer but if it were Ghana I'd be gloating.

[Tobi17]

South Africans no care about soccer like that. It's Rugby thst gets them hyped man or woman.

Yup. Which is why it's not a true rivalry, soccer is not their national sport like it is ours. Nigeria's rivals are Cameroon and Ghana. I don't feel anything when we beat SA in soccer but if it were Ghana I'd be gloating.

Our beef with South Africa is more political than football to be fair, it's just their tendency for xenophobia that makes it sweet to rub it in whenever we beat them.

[sabb]

Well boys, never doubted u
special salute to King Ekong

[anointed]

If you have BP or heart issues, pls, stay away from SE games o

JUST-IN: APC Chieftain, Cairo Ojougboh, Slumps, Dies
Written by Felix Igbekoyi 14 seconds ago
APC
A former member of the House of Representatives, who represented Ika federal constituency of Delta State, Dr Cairo Ojougboh, is dead.

Reliable sources said that the outspoken politician and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) died on Wednesday night while watching the AFCON 2023 semi-final match between Nigeria and South Africa.

“As soon as a penalty kick was awarded against Nigeria during the AFCON match with South Africa on Wednesday’s semi-final clash in Bouake, Ivory Coast, he slumped,” a source privy to the incident told LEADERSHIP on Thursday.[

https://leadership.ng/just-in-apc-chief ... umps-dies/
/quote]

[Bigpokey24]

[Dammy]

Meanwhile, Yusuf should thank the lord almighty we won this game because the kind of abuse he would have received no go get mate. See how he was ball watching and completely lost Percy Tau here.



https://x.com/centregoals/status/175530 ... 03563?s=20

A lot of ITKs were railing on Peseiro for not inviting Yusuf much earlier and some even claimed that it was fans pressure that forced the coach to invite Yusuf and Nwabali.
It’s like they seem not to understand the nature of Peseiro, he’s not a coach that throws players under the bus, he defends players publicly and then does things his own way. When Emmanuel Dennis fouled up the penalty against Portugal, he defended him but never invited him again to the SE. He defended Uzoho publicly while looking for a better alternative. He spent time in South Africa with Nwabali and attended both training sessions and a match. Prior to our first match at AFCON, he publicly said Uzoho was his number one, then shocked everyone by naming Nwabali in the starting lineup.
I have been among those who called for Yusuf’s invitation to the SE but I deferred to the coach’s judgment. Peseiro was in Antwerp to watch Yusuf’s UCL match against Porto and may have seen some of the things we are just noticing and that was why he put him on standby. Even at Antwerp, Yusuf, has lost his starting spot to an 18 year old Belgian player, Mandela Keita, and only played in the UCL because Keita was injured. As soon as Keita got fit, Yusuf returned to the bench.
Yusuf has potentials but he still has quite a bit of work to do.

[Bigpokey24]

[kash n' karry]

I re-watched the entire game ... this is the break down of the productivity of both sides.. .

1st half - Nigeria pressed and maintained more possession in the first 15 mins THEN South Africa took over and created better chance till then of this half
2nd half - Nigeria dominated South Africa for the 42 mins out 45 mins. This earned Nigeria a penalty + a 2nd goal. This 2nd goal was disallowed in the 42nd minute of the
2nd half and a penalty was awarded South Africa. They scored and went ahead to dominate Nigeria over the last 3 minutes of the 2nd half
Extra time - Nigeria took over again and dominated most of the game. Looks as though South Africa wanted to settle for the penalty kicks to decide the game.
Penalty Kicks - Nigeria dominated South Africa at the deciders of the game to push through to the finals of the tournament !!

Conclusion - Overall Nigeria dominated in more stretches of the game than South Africa. Both sides created many chances they couldn't convert upon... while Nigeria went ahead
to outperform South Africa at the penalties. Still, South Africa did a commendable job {with slightly more offensive precisions} and this will actually tune up Nigeria very well against CIV, which happens to be a weaker overall team than South Africa and even Cameroon {both of who Nigeria eliminated}. However the joker for CIV is that they are playing right in their own country !!

[tolahs]

see dem folks run dem mouth like this..smh

That was out b4 our match