Waffiman wrote:
Akpeyi did not make just one mistake, he made a sequence of mistakes that has me concluding he even lacks the basic understanding of the rules of the game, which is compounded by his suspect ability.
1st mistake, you play to the whistle at all times. You do not act unless you are responding to the Ref's whistle. Even if the Line Judge raises his flag, he can, and must only act or react to the Ref's whistle, not the Line Judge's flag. The Ref did not blow his whistle.
As a goalie, you know you can only use your hands in your penalty box, so what was he thinking about when he decided to pick up a ball out of his penalty box?
These two school boy errors by Akpeyi are terribly embarrassing because it exposes a deep flaw in his understanding of the basic rules governing the game. But he makes even more stupid errors.
A free kick is given, the goalie has a responsibility of building a wall. Just watch the mess the makes of that. His team mates in the wall are looking lost as to where or what exact position he wants his wall. I was watching and saying that is not a wall, it as shambolic. The wall was poorly positioned.
Perhaps, the worst error of the lot was Akpeyi's standing position when the free kick was taken. The skill in taking the free kick is all about hitting the ball to get the speed, bend and dip to go over the wall and beat the goalie. The wall is there to stop the free kick from being a goal. If the free kick taker gets the speed, height, dip and swerve to beat the wall, he usually scores and we agree it was a brilliant free kick and there is nothing the goalie could.
A goalie at this level should never position himself in the position Akpeyi did. Akpeyi is supposed to cover his far post, whilst the wall covers his near post. When Aguero takes his free kick, Akpeyi is standing behind his wall, leaving a gaping goal for Aguero. Watch how Aguero effortlessly passes the ball into the empty far post.
Akpeyi's performance was embarrassing to me as a Nigerian and a SuperEagles fan. No surprise he was subbed off for the 2nd half.
The positioning of the wall was not bad actually. Go back and check the replay. The problem is that he did not trust his wall to do its job, and he took a massive gamble by taking a couple of steps to the side of the goal that the wall was supposed to protect and exposed his side.
I do agree that he has no business wearing the national team colors ever again based on his performances in several games. This level pass am.