I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World Cup

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Gotti
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by Gotti »

The Eagle wrote:I am not angry at Sodje .... because he didn't choose himself into the squad/team .... because like any human being he is rightly happy and nostalgic about an experience many of us wish we were good enough at football to even be considered for .... because I respect that as a professional footballer/sportsman, he must be a self-marketer that hypes himself and his skills in any interview .... and because I know when wearing our jersey he played to the upper limits of his abilities, which might not seem like "praise", except for the number of times I've watched Eagles players (especially those with secure shirts) act like they were pitying us by showing up, play lackadaisically until we are at risk of getting knocked out of qualifying or the tournament, and then belatedly start playing the way they should have played from the start.

With that said, his claim that he was in the World Cup squad/team on "merit" .... is .... not necessarily a statement lacking in the potential for rational, convincing and conclusive counter-argument.

If you know what I mean. :)
Respectfully disagree...

“Merit” is a relative term, and as admittedly limited as Efe Sodje was (albeit he was still way BETTER than Mobi ‘Kill-and-Go’ Oparaku at the 1998 France WC), he arguably merited his place on the squad based on the competition (or more precisely, the lack thereof) at the RB position - which effectively was against the likes of Friday Onyeukwu (one of Ayo Akinfe’s first ‘clients’) and Chris Kanu. This was a rather acute period of the prolonged drought at the RB position for the SE, after the underwhelming performances of the likes of converted midfielders Godwin Okpara and the oft-injured Gbenga Okunowo at the 2000 AFCON, while Coach Onigbinde preferred to play a young Joseph Yobo in CD and DM.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by chief nfachairman »

Gotti wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
Statistics without context is substantively meaningless...

The 2010 team bent over and afforded Greece with its first-ever WC win (and goals?) and comically choked against a subpar South Korea, all the while laboring through some of the most prurient football ever proffered by any Nigerian WC team (male or female).
2010 team had the best set o players available to Nigeria at the time. Also, they actually played one of the most organized football thaat decade.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by kalani JR »

chief nfachairman wrote:
Gotti wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
Statistics without context is substantively meaningless...

The 2010 team bent over and afforded Greece with its first-ever WC win (and goals?) and comically choked against a subpar South Korea, all the while laboring through some of the most prurient football ever proffered by any Nigerian WC team (male or female).
2010 team had the best set o players available to Nigeria at the time. Also, they actually played one of the most organized football thaat decade.
2010 organized?
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by maceo4 »

chief nfachairman wrote:
Gotti wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
Statistics without context is substantively meaningless...

The 2010 team bent over and afforded Greece with its first-ever WC win (and goals?) and comically choked against a subpar South Korea, all the while laboring through some of the most prurient football ever proffered by any Nigerian WC team (male or female).
2010 team had the best set o players available to Nigeria at the time. Also, they actually played one of the most organized football thaat decade.
Thats the thing, can't forget the 2002 team was NOT the best we could offer and were really JJ and a bunch of junks that we all knew never even stood a chance before any ball was kicked.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by theYemster »

maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
The 2002 team conceded only three goals against three top ten teams while the 2010 team conceded five goals against arguably more inferior opposition.

Context is everything my friend.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by wiseone »

Wished he'd been asked why he wore a bandana during matches.

Another point is that he played for a club (Crewe) who had an excellent youth system. They churn out talented kids by the bucketload. Their former manager Dario Gradi was the Guy Roux, Valery Lobanovski, or Arsene Wenger of the English lower leagues.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by maceo4 »

theYemster wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
The 2002 team conceded only three goals against three top ten teams while the 2010 team conceded five goals against arguably more inferior opposition.

Context is everything my friend.
Well that's because they played every game not to get embarrassed, hunkered down and defended with 10 men behind the ball, not to actually try to win or do anything of note, just do not get embarrassed. That was a completely wasted WC when our best hands were ignored for a bunch of undeserving rookies.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by john12 »

Maceo are you sure that you watched the same tournament? The only game we played horrible in 2002 was against Argentina and I believe it was because of extreme reverence and over zealousness. Afterwards, we fought like a lion against sweden and England and could had even beaten those 2 teams with our best players available. 2010 was the absolute worse Nigeria team infact that period 2007 to 2010 was a dark era for super eagles
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by maceo4 »

john12 wrote:Maceo are you sure that you watched the same tournament? The only game we played horrible in 2002 was against Argentina and I believe it was because of extreme reverence and over zealousness. Afterwards, we fought like a lion against sweden and England and could had even beaten those 2 teams with our best players available. 2010 was the absolute worse Nigeria team infact that period 2007 to 2010 was a dark era for super eagles
Bros talk true, we weren't really competitive in that tourney, apart from some parts of the Sweden game where JJ and Aghahowa tried we mainly played not to lose by too many goals vs Argentina (that couldn't even qualify out of the group) and against England that was just a a kick about session with nothing on the line, wasn't even a real game as we were completely out of contention and the highlight was a save from a 40 yard Scholes shot. Don't even think we had a shot on target vs England lol. So Sweden is the only game we actually gave it a go and afterwards Taribo lamented about the junk players we took. Trust me, I wish I could forget that tournament, we need to get away from 'youth, youth, youth' and focus on taking our best players, and I think that tournament set a really bad precedent.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

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1naija wrote:He played like an American sports hero ...with heart and no skills! He was our Baker Mayfield.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by maceo4 »

Highlights from our best game in 2002:

[/video]
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by john12 »

Maceo we played better than Sweden in that match but was unlucky while against England it was 50/50. Do you also realize that those 3 teams were rated much higher than us and had a combination of 3 World Cup behind them. I believe that our 1994 team sef might had find it difficult qualifying from that group. 2010 team is the worse Nigeria team I have ever seen at a world cup
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

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They were utter bobbins. The fact that an over the hill, nearly crippled Kanu was the most technically adept player in that squad said much. Shame that our weakest team went to the WC on the only occasion when Nigeria was presented with a WC group that was not utterly formidable (how we failed to qualify from a group including South Korea and Greece is beyond me).
john12 wrote:Maceo we played better than Sweden in that match but was unlucky while against England it was 50/50. Do you also realize that those 3 teams were rated much higher than us and had a combination of 3 World Cup behind them. I believe that our 1994 team sef might had find it difficult qualifying from that group. 2010 team is the worse Nigeria team I have ever seen at a world cup
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by pajimoh »

maceo4 wrote:Highlights from our best game in 2002:

[/video]
European refs are too quick to give penalties against African teams. I wonder how many of them are racists? :tic:
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by maceo4 »

john12 wrote:Maceo we played better than Sweden in that match but was unlucky while against England it was 50/50. Do you also realize that those 3 teams were rated much higher than us and had a combination of 3 World Cup behind them. I believe that our 1994 team sef might had find it difficult qualifying from that group. 2010 team is the worse Nigeria team I have ever seen at a world cup
That's not how I remember it, and if we outplayed Sweden why would Taribo be crying about us taking junk players to the world cup right after that game? The highlights also doesn't show us playing better than them, they had just as many if not more chances and they won a game that they only needed to not lose while we needed to win. The England match was 50/50 because a draw was good enough for them so they didn't really come out to do much, and we were already out of the tourney so we didn't do much was just a chance for JJ to start dancing around to sell himself. How I'm looking at it is:

- In 2002 we were already out of the tournament at the end of the second game.

- In 2010 we still had a good chance of progressing going into the last match.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by eyan »

maceo4 wrote:
theYemster wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
akamoke wrote:
maceo4 wrote:
eyan wrote:
john12 wrote:Don’t like dwelling on the past but Nigeria could had beaten Sweden if we took al our best players to that world cup
More like if we had taken our chances. Okocha and Yobo hit the post.
I think Utaka also missed a point blank chance. But damn that was a crappy team.
That was a bad team but our crappiest has to be the 2010 squad
I dunno, that team scored 3 goals even with Yakubu's point blank miss, while the 2002 scored a grand total of 1. 2010 also would have likely gone through to the second round if not for the momentary madness of Sani Kaita.
The 2002 team conceded only three goals against three top ten teams while the 2010 team conceded five goals against arguably more inferior opposition.

Context is everything my friend.
Well that's because they played every game not to get embarrassed, hunkered down and defended with 10 men behind the ball, not to actually try to win or do anything of note, just do not get embarrassed. That was a completely wasted WC when our best hands were ignored for a bunch of undeserving rookies.
We defended against Argentina. I think we gave them to much respect. We actually balled against Sweden. Our weaknesses are actually Taribo ( he was the junk players not his team mates), Ike's inability to kick a ball out( Made same mistake in CAN 2000 against Cameroon) and injury to Kanu ( team was built around Kanu and Okocha). Team wasn't actually bad.. .they lacked confidence.
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by john12 »

What did taribo achieve for Nigeria to constitute calling his fellow teammates junk after that Sweden game?? Infact, that comment was guilty conscience affecting taribo because he was the one that handed a soft penalty to Sweden. Maceo, the game is on YouTube we outplayed Sweden but they won. Let’s look forward to 2018
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by Gotti »

kalani JR wrote:
chief nfachairman wrote: 2010 team had the best set o players available to Nigeria at the time. Also, they actually played one of the most organized football thaat decade.
2010 organized?
Thanks bros, for saving me the bother... :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:
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Re: I got ovation from my club's teammates after '02 World C

Post by Gotti »

maceo4 wrote:Thats the thing, can't forget the 2002 team was NOT the best we could offer and were really JJ and a bunch of junks that we all knew never even stood a chance before any ball was kicked.
Neither was the 2010 team...
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