Sweden 3 V 3 Nigeria (FT)

[Odas]

Our coaching staff is clueless......na sooooo kneeling down to and raising hand to God.....how about using your brain to outwit the other bench.....I am reminded of the saying God helps those that help themselves......our religiosity cannot be the basis of our plan.....

Thank you my brother! I, in different terms, stated the something and as usual, I was swarmed by some people for stating my opinion about the coach's inappropriate time to show his religious naivety.

Again, no be ONLY him SABI God. He couldn't even make a SINGLE substitution to save his behind.

so you would have been happy if he made 4 substitutions and lost 3-2. his team came back from 2-0 down to draw and you are calling him clueless.....

maybe at half time, he told them to go out there and redeem themselves and that he is not going to bail any of them out with substitution.

on kneeling down.........? thats up to the guy and his GOD, he took a chance and, in my view, it paid off

I don't like discussing with your type. Yes, your TYPE who either DO NOT understand English Language or "puts words in people's mouth." Where in all my posts did I say the coach is CLUELESS?

[oloye]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

[Odas]

I deliberately focused on the coaching staff's excessive kneeling and seeming religiosity because it fundamentally demonstrates the Nigerian character flaw! There is no doubt in my mind that Nigerians are one of the most brilliant, hardworking and ingenious people on this earth.....but at the same time we can be the most naive, suspicious and fetish people....God dwells in the heart of every man and woman the excessive displays of religiosity only demonstrates in my mind, one who has no plan and has left the outcome to chance.....the coaching staff after the first goal should have been making the necessary adjustments having seen how poorly we defended on the set piece instead it is left to chance or luck...being lucky or praying that the Swedes don't capitalize on our defensive errors cannot be the basis of the plan to succeed....does anyone for a minute think that the Swedish coaching staff and bench weren't also praying to get out of that game with a result but they didn't have to let everyone in the World know...at the end of the game our coach is kneeling down reciting his incarnations to God or Allah while the Swedish coach is waiting for the obligatary handshake....that says it all! As we all know being religious doesn't equate with being moral or a good person if that was the case Nigeria would be the most moral and incorruptible country in the World...we need to consign religion to its rightful place in our lives and do more thinking....please leave the sentiments at home!

I like the way you put your points for many people here to understand in PLAIN statements. It was something I was trying to make them see or know only in a few words. Again, the man is an embarrassment to himself, to me and to several Nigerians. No be only him SABI God. He could have done all of that - plus - more in his room or in et al

[marko]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

I choose to live in Sweden for reasons known to myself, but i will rather talk about football even though the sun does not shine for 6 months like you said, to be honest, i don't really care if Sweden are rated number 5 or number 1, they were there for the taking last night, the swedish commentators were happy when the referee blew the whistle, I can imagine in terms of raw talent, only the Brazilians can match Nigeria, sorry the country and continent are under achieving, Nigeria in particular, i have been watching Nigerian football for over 25 years, nations cup, youth competitions, world cup, you name it, i have seen every game live, maybe i am still suffering from the depression of the 1994 world cup when we were like a couple of minutes to the quarter-final, yes i washed my car for 5 hours after the game in west London, even washed the aerial! jokes aside, Nigeria should be up there with the best and until they get there, i will continue to criticise!!

[Odas]

Man kneels after game, wahala. Man shouts during game, wahala. Man is fat, wahala. Man do interview, wahala. Man is man, wahala. Man no praise anyone, wahala. In fact the life of a man is nothing but wahala.

Anything you do someone go complain.

Chei, Pajimoh - you dey craze-o!

[Otitokoro]

That was funny

I choose to live in Sweden for reasons known to myself, but i will rather talk about football even though the sun does not shine for 6 months like you said, to be honest, i don't really care if Sweden are rated number 5 or number 1, they were there for the taking last night, the swedish commentators were happy when the referee blew the whistle, I can imagine in terms of raw talent, only the Brazilians can match Nigeria, sorry the country and continent are under achieving, Nigeria in particular, i have been watching Nigerian football for over 25 years, nations cup, youth competitions, world cup, you name it, i have seen every game live, maybe i am still suffering from the depression of the 1994 world cup when we were like a couple of minutes to the quarter-final, yes i washed my car for 5 hours after the game in west London, even washed the aerial! jokes aside, Nigeria should be up there with the best and until they get there, i will continue to criticise!!

[Cellular]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

You do your best and you leave the rest to God.

I just imagine what we could be if we at least prepared like the folks we are competing against. The kind of resources available for the opposing coaches that ours don't have. The basic compensation and remuneration that the opposing coaches have that ours don't have.

As a Naijarian I recognize the challenges that we face. And I commend those who in spite of the challenges are able to compete with the best.

[hestonap]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

Uncle Oloye,

You have to understand where Marko is coming from. This is 2015 a good 16 years since we debuted on the world stage as far as the womens game is concerned. It is very frustrating to have the same recurring declimal all the time - especially ones that are self inflicted.

Even the blind could see how superior we were in terms of individual talent...I hate to rehash the words 'disorganisation and being naive' which have become dog whistle for all things African....but it is %$#@^& frustrating that we continue to as a people sabotage ourselves.

Marko is right - the Swedish team was there for the taking - the singular reason why we did not was because we were simply a poorly prepared side. I will not go as far as to blame the coach for this - he is a product of the a system that refuses to improve itself and seem content with mediocrity.

How many grade A matches did these lovely ladies get to play. What sort of support did the FA provide for the coaching team and by extension the girls.

The singular reason why this is very frustrating is that opportunities like this come but once.....I remember USA 94 - that was a singular opportunity for us to have potentially gone all the way - but we self destructed. We are yet to truly build as a deep a squad as that was 20 years down the line.
In the intervening periods - we have repeatedly sabotaged ourselves - whether its by dodgy invitations, or silly coaching changes or bonus issues - the reality is that we have remained our biggest enemies.

With the collection of girls on display yesterday - I am sorry we should not just be satisfied with the output we got - if we are, then I am afraid we are doing or have done a couple of things to ourselves, the first of which is a failure to recognise how good and blessed we are potentially and secondly and perhaps more importantly - a failure to recognise that we are our own worse enemies...in short we truly sell ourselves short if yesterdays performance is seen purely in the sense of relief rather than a true realisation of how we sold ourselves short.

I do not see his criticisms as one of self-loathing apologies if that comes across as a strong or indeed strange choice of words - what i see here is the view of a man who recognises how we seem to fail to realise how good we truly can be and how we continue to be our own enemies because we simply fail to pay attention to small details.

Good luck to the gals and the coach - but they truly deserve better because the Nigerian system is failing them - just like it continues to fail many of its citizens in other spheres of life.

[hestonap]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

You do your best and you leave the rest to God.

I just imagine what we could be if we at least prepared like the folks we are competing against. The kind of resources available for the opposing coaches that ours don't have. The basic compensation and remuneration that the opposing coaches have that ours don't have.

As a Naijarian I recognize the challenges that we face. And I commend those who in spite of the challenges are able to compete with the best.

Uncle Cellular,

But for how long should it continue. Nigeria is not a poor nation. We aer a mismanaged nation. There is no reason why we can't compete with the best in terms of provision of such expertise whether its in terms of football coaching or indeed other spheres of life.

Yes we ought to commend those who 'excel' in spite of obstacles - but we need to go further and start to challenge and unroot the folks and systems that place and constitute themselves as such obstacles.

Failure to do so will lead to our continual wallowing in the state of moral victories and 'what-if'.

This issue for me goes beyond football - it is a statement of what we are and how we do things as a people.

At the risk of misquoting scriptures....the psalmist said that God elevated Jesus above his brethren because he loved righteouness and hated iniquity....the principle in that scripture for me is that - we need as a people to start to truly love excellence and hate mediocrity - in all aspects of our lives and as a people.

We are so much better (potentially) than we are and yet we continue to settle for and explain and excuse things away.

A people have been and are being wasted.

[Gooner1]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

You do your best and you leave the rest to God.

I just imagine what we could be if we at least prepared like the folks we are competing against. The kind of resources available for the opposing coaches that ours don't have. The basic compensation and remuneration that the opposing coaches have that ours don't have.

As a Naijarian I recognize the challenges that we face. And I commend those who in spite of the challenges are able to compete with the best.

Uncle Cellular,

But for how long should it continue. Nigeria is not a poor nation. We aer a mismanaged nation. There is no reason why we can't compete with the best in terms of provision of such expertise whether its in terms of football coaching or indeed other spheres of life.

Yes we ought to commend those who 'excel' in spite of obstacles - but we need to go further and start to challenge and unroot the folks and systems that place and constitute themselves as such obstacles.

Failure to do so will lead to our continual wallowing in the state of moral victories and 'what-if'.

This issue for me goes beyond football - it is a statement of what we are and how we do things as a people.

At the risk of misquoting scriptures....the psalmist said that God elevated Jesus above his brethren because he loved righteouness and hated iniquity....the principle in that scripture for me is that - we need as a people to start to truly love excellence and hate mediocrity - in all aspects of our lives and as a people.

We are so much better (potentially) than we are and yet we continue to settle for and explain and excuse things away.

A people have been and are being wasted.

[txj]

Our coaching staff is clueless......na sooooo kneeling down to and raising hand to God.....how about using your brain to outwit the other bench.....I am reminded of the saying God helps those that help themselves......our religiosity cannot be the basis of our plan.....

If there was one obvious thing from this game it's that the coaching staff wasn't clueless. That second half turnaround was about one of the best I've ever seen from a Nigerian coached team.

I can't fault anything the coach did/didnt so from half time onwards.

IMHO, it was more down to the physical & individual characteristics of several players than the coach. General play was disjointed.......
Sweden didn't capitalise on the Falcons turnovers as the girls quickly retrieved the ball back An organized team with a bit more physical gambit will clip these Falcons wings.....
Don't get me wrong, these girls have performed gallantly, but the coaching + preparation is letting them down

Naijarians are just threemuch.

When Brazil adjusted and beat us in the U20 it was that our coach is bad. When we adjusted and scored 3 goals in the second half against a better team with 'better' coach we refuse to give him credit.

Is our autophobia this bad?

Will it cost us anything to give a Naijarian coach any credit?

I agree the coach gets credit for the result; that's how it should be.

But just out of curiosity, what was the adjustment he made in the 2HF?

Adjustments that made us go from down 2 to drawing 3-3. That's all you need to know.

That's not all we need to know, unless u are acknowledging that you don't know and are merely blowing hot air!

U gave an example with Brazil. Ok.

Ugbowo on the thread by EII cited the specific adjustments the Brazilian coach made.

What specific adjustments did Okon make that made us go from 2 down to drawing 3-3?

[pajimoh]

the kneeling down and praying was over the top, Nigeria is not the only religious country in this planet you know and are they really religious?? Nigeria gave away 3 points as far as am concerned, they were technically better than the swedes but they capitalised on every mistake, thats how they scored all their goals, all 3 Nigeria goals were well taken

IF that pissed you off..then you should see the Egyptians.

not pissed off, it was just an observation, nothing wrong in praising God but its often hard work that leads to success in life, the coach acted like he needed divine intervention to get a draw, thats all i am saying

He acted like? He was thanking his God for a good day at work. Nothing wrong with that IMHO. I guess we should start telling our players not to pray before the start of the game...You guys are not serious...what next? Smh

Well to be fair they could pray in the locker room before coming out and after going back in. Doing it on the field seems more like for show.

Besides I personally don't see the point in praying before/during games. For what? For God to be partial and help you out over your opponents? Seems unfair to me of we're all supposedly his children. Just prep hard and roll the dice. Que, sera, sera.

But that's just me.

A lot of things are being done on the green grass for show. Nothing says you have to pray in private or thank God in private. You can do it in public and where ever. They are some teams that come together in hurdle before the start of the game to talk about whatever. That looks like a show to me but who cares? Do you but respect and play the game. We came down from being 0-2 down to ending the game at 3-3 against a team that many thought was going to beat us silly and all my people see is the coach praying and thanking God...I mean really?

How many times have you seen German, Italian, Brazilian, Spanish, Argentinian teams pray like we do? The problem in Nigeria is people think praying gives them carte blanche to slack off and still expect good things. You see corrupt politicians laundering stolen stash through church feeling that it automatically absolves them of sin.

Pray for good job, good health and happiness. Work hard for sporting and academic success. No short cuts.

You're assuming those praying on the field do not put in the hard work. Wrong assumption.
In fact if it comes to hard work Africans are some of the hardest working people on earth.
It takes more than hard work to be successful.

[oloye]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

Uncle Oloye,

You have to understand where Marko is coming from. This is 2015 a good 16 years since we debuted on the world stage as far as the womens game is concerned. It is very frustrating to have the same recurring declimal all the time - especially ones that are self inflicted.

Even the blind could see how superior we were in terms of individual talent...I hate to rehash the words 'disorganisation and being naive' which have become dog whistle for all things African....but it is %$#@^& frustrating that we continue to as a people sabotage ourselves.

Marko is right - the Swedish team was there for the taking - the singular reason why we did not was because we were simply a poorly prepared side. I will not go as far as to blame the coach for this - he is a product of the a system that refuses to improve itself and seem content with mediocrity.

How many grade A matches did these lovely ladies get to play. What sort of support did the FA provide for the coaching team and by extension the girls.

The singular reason why this is very frustrating is that opportunities like this come but once.....I remember USA 94 - that was a singular opportunity for us to have potentially gone all the way - but we self destructed. We are yet to truly build as a deep a squad as that was 20 years down the line.
In the intervening periods - we have repeatedly sabotaged ourselves - whether its by dodgy invitations, or silly coaching changes or bonus issues - the reality is that we have remained our biggest enemies.

With the collection of girls on display yesterday - I am sorry we should not just be satisfied with the output we got - if we are, then I am afraid we are doing or have done a couple of things to ourselves, the first of which is a failure to recognise how good and blessed we are potentially and secondly and perhaps more importantly - a failure to recognise that we are our own worse enemies...in short we truly sell ourselves short if yesterdays performance is seen purely in the sense of relief rather than a true realisation of how we sold ourselves short.

I do not see his criticisms as one of self-loathing apologies if that comes across as a strong or indeed strange choice of words - what i see here is the view of a man who recognises how we seem to fail to realise how good we truly can be and how we continue to be our own enemies because we simply fail to pay attention to small details.

Good luck to the gals and the coach - but they truly deserve better because the Nigerian system is failing them - just like it continues to fail many of its citizens in other spheres of life.

Trust me bro..if the points you highlighted above were the points he was trying to convey across, he would have received a thousand KPOMs from me....may be it is the night school i went. He was more interested in bashing a coach who surmounted the odds considering the disparity in terms of what was available for him to work with. He even queried his work ethics ..all because the man chose to acknowledge his God. Marko na my padi...but sometimes he allows his disdain for everything Nigeria to get ahead of him..that is when we fall apart.

[marko]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

Uncle Oloye,

You have to understand where Marko is coming from. This is 2015 a good 16 years since we debuted on the world stage as far as the womens game is concerned. It is very frustrating to have the same recurring declimal all the time - especially ones that are self inflicted.

Even the blind could see how superior we were in terms of individual talent...I hate to rehash the words 'disorganisation and being naive' which have become dog whistle for all things African....but it is %$#@^& frustrating that we continue to as a people sabotage ourselves.

Marko is right - the Swedish team was there for the taking - the singular reason why we did not was because we were simply a poorly prepared side. I will not go as far as to blame the coach for this - he is a product of the a system that refuses to improve itself and seem content with mediocrity.

How many grade A matches did these lovely ladies get to play. What sort of support did the FA provide for the coaching team and by extension the girls.

The singular reason why this is very frustrating is that opportunities like this come but once.....I remember USA 94 - that was a singular opportunity for us to have potentially gone all the way - but we self destructed. We are yet to truly build as a deep a squad as that was 20 years down the line.
In the intervening periods - we have repeatedly sabotaged ourselves - whether its by dodgy invitations, or silly coaching changes or bonus issues - the reality is that we have remained our biggest enemies.

With the collection of girls on display yesterday - I am sorry we should not just be satisfied with the output we got - if we are, then I am afraid we are doing or have done a couple of things to ourselves, the first of which is a failure to recognise how good and blessed we are potentially and secondly and perhaps more importantly - a failure to recognise that we are our own worse enemies...in short we truly sell ourselves short if yesterdays performance is seen purely in the sense of relief rather than a true realisation of how we sold ourselves short.

I do not see his criticisms as one of self-loathing apologies if that comes across as a strong or indeed strange choice of words - what i see here is the view of a man who recognises how we seem to fail to realise how good we truly can be and how we continue to be our own enemies because we simply fail to pay attention to small details.

Good luck to the gals and the coach - but they truly deserve better because the Nigerian system is failing them - just like it continues to fail many of its citizens in other spheres of life.

Trust me bro..if the points you highlighted above were the points he was trying to convey across, he would have received a thousand KPOMs from me....may be it is the night school i went. He was more interested in bashing a coach who surmounted the odds considering the disparity in terms of what was available for him to work with. He even queried his work ethics ..all because the man chose to acknowledge his God. Marko na my padi...but sometimes he allows his disdain for everything Nigeria to get ahead of him..that is when we fall apart.

The people that hate nigeria will never be seen dead in a forum like this, my over 20,000 posts will indeed tell you i dont have any disdain like you pointed out, like i said, i have been watching Nigerian football since 1980, my first competition i watched was the nations cup that Nigeria won, that was my first time in Nigeria, since then, i fell in love with Nigerian football, from the days of IICC and leventis, my home team in Ibadan,i saw all the games religiously, i even met all the leventis players! When i eventually moved back to the Uk, i still watched all the nations cup from the early 90s till 2015, when i look at the talent Nigeria has produced over the years, only Brazil and maybe Argentina can match us, i still say this till this very day,we just lack the basic organization that is needed at the top level to suceed, yesterday was another example of the continued heartache i go through watching Nigeria compete with the world best, after 1994 world cup, i promised myself not to get too attached to the national team but it seems that is not working, yesterday, i saw a typical Nigerian side full of raw skill, something that made the swedish commentators envious at half time even when they were 2 goals up, as usual the same mistakes i have seen in the last 30 years reared its ugly head again, what i saw was another ill prepared team and i will not take this back, we should be performing far better!!

[Gooner1]

I am not mocking his religious displays, what i am saying is if the coach spends quality time in preparing his team against this type of opposition, he will not need divine intervention every other minute, hard work is what will get the team far in this competition, hard work is what will make a team the world cup winners, The Brazillians have a huge statue of christ the redeemer for crying out loud, sometimes they take age cheats to these competitions and they still need divine intervention, who are they fooling??

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves

And they told you he did not spend quality time with his team..what do you know about the coach other than seeing him on the tV. Tell us anything you know about him? I guess you were there when he was guiding the gals to becoming African champions...geez how patronising can this statement get. MArko sometimes you need to climb down from this high horse sometimes and say hold on ...do i really know anything about the issue i am making a judgment on here. You dont know anything about the coach, you dont know why they appointed him as the coach and you dont know the level of time he spends working and toiling to get his team this far...how can you question the time he has to praise and worship his God?

I don't know the coach personally, sorry if this is the team that won in Africa, the standards must be pretty low, after watching all those cheap goals they conceded, thats all i need to know about the coaching methods, you will not see the top teams conceded like school kids, thats all i am saying!!

Sweden were there for the taking, it was pretty obvious Nigeria had the better technical players, with better coaching, Nigeria could have defeated sweden by at least 5 goals, sorry Nigeria threw away that game last night due to the reasons i mentioned, lack of concentration

YOu did not surprise me, i knew you would climb onto a higher horse. Don't worry those who appreciate what the coach has done for the country appreciate him...feel free not to. Sometimes i wonder why you hang around the people you never see anything good in them...seriously if i have this much disdain for a group of people i would be far away from them.... So they won African cup it is because the standard is low, wao, talk of self loathing. No one ever said the standard was anything compared to european standard, how can it be with the myriads issues confronting the game on the continent. But yesterday a team with lower standard made the no 5 team in the world wish they were meeting another opponent. I will take that, many Nigerians would take that..save for the ones where it is always sunny in the world they live..even if they areleaving in a place where the sun does not come out for 6 month . You must feel good being on CE...i mean you get to talk down on a lot of people for the fun of it.

Uncle Oloye,

You have to understand where Marko is coming from. This is 2015 a good 16 years since we debuted on the world stage as far as the womens game is concerned. It is very frustrating to have the same recurring declimal all the time - especially ones that are self inflicted.

Even the blind could see how superior we were in terms of individual talent...I hate to rehash the words 'disorganisation and being naive' which have become dog whistle for all things African....but it is %$#@^& frustrating that we continue to as a people sabotage ourselves.

Marko is right - the Swedish team was there for the taking - the singular reason why we did not was because we were simply a poorly prepared side. I will not go as far as to blame the coach for this - he is a product of the a system that refuses to improve itself and seem content with mediocrity.

How many grade A matches did these lovely ladies get to play. What sort of support did the FA provide for the coaching team and by extension the girls.

The singular reason why this is very frustrating is that opportunities like this come but once.....I remember USA 94 - that was a singular opportunity for us to have potentially gone all the way - but we self destructed. We are yet to truly build as a deep a squad as that was 20 years down the line.
In the intervening periods - we have repeatedly sabotaged ourselves - whether its by dodgy invitations, or silly coaching changes or bonus issues - the reality is that we have remained our biggest enemies.

With the collection of girls on display yesterday - I am sorry we should not just be satisfied with the output we got - if we are, then I am afraid we are doing or have done a couple of things to ourselves, the first of which is a failure to recognise how good and blessed we are potentially and secondly and perhaps more importantly - a failure to recognise that we are our own worse enemies...in short we truly sell ourselves short if yesterdays performance is seen purely in the sense of relief rather than a true realisation of how we sold ourselves short.

I do not see his criticisms as one of self-loathing apologies if that comes across as a strong or indeed strange choice of words - what i see here is the view of a man who recognises how we seem to fail to realise how good we truly can be and how we continue to be our own enemies because we simply fail to pay attention to small details.

Good luck to the gals and the coach - but they truly deserve better because the Nigerian system is failing them - just like it continues to fail many of its citizens in other spheres of life.

Trust me bro..if the points you highlighted above were the points he was trying to convey across, he would have received a thousand KPOMs from me....may be it is the night school i went. He was more interested in bashing a coach who surmounted the odds considering the disparity in terms of what was available for him to work with. He even queried his work ethics ..all because the man chose to acknowledge his God. Marko na my padi...but sometimes he allows his disdain for everything Nigeria to get ahead of him..that is when we fall apart.

The people that hate nigeria will never be seen dead in a forum like this, my over 20,000 posts will indeed tell you i dont have any disdain like you pointed out, like i said, i have been watching Nigerian football since 1980, my first competition i watched was the nations cup that Nigeria won, that was my first time in Nigeria, since then, i fell in love with Nigerian football, from the days of IICC and leventis, my home team in Ibadan,i saw all the games religiously, i even met all the leventis players! When i eventually moved back to the Uk, i still watched all the nations cup from the early 90s till 2015, when i look at the talent Nigeria has produced over the years, only Brazil and maybe Argentina can match us, i still say this till this very day,we just lack the basic organization that is needed at the top level to suceed, yesterday was another example of the continued heartache i go through watching Nigeria compete with the world best, after 1994 world cup, i promised myself not to get too attached to the national team but it seems that is not working, yesterday, i saw a typical Nigerian side full of raw skill, something that made the swedish commentators envious at half time even when they were 2 goals up, as usual the same mistakes i have seen in the last 30 years reared its ugly head again, what i saw was another ill prepared team and i will not take this back, we should be performing far better!!

[truetalk]

That was funny

I choose to live in Sweden for reasons known to myself, but i will rather talk about football even though the sun does not shine for 6 months like you said, to be honest, i don't really care if Sweden are rated number 5 or number 1, they were there for the taking last night, the swedish commentators were happy when the referee blew the whistle, I can imagine in terms of raw talent, only the Brazilians can match Nigeria, sorry the country and continent are under achieving, Nigeria in particular, i have been watching Nigerian football for over 25 years, nations cup, youth competitions, world cup, you name it, i have seen every game live, maybe i am still suffering from the depression of the 1994 world cup when we were like a couple of minutes to the quarter-final, yes i washed my car for 5 hours after the game in west London, even washed the aerial! jokes aside, Nigeria should be up there with the best and until they get there, i will continue to criticise!!

Sat on the edge of my bed and stared into space for about 10 - 12 hours. Night came, morning came. I did not even lie down. My mum was threatening to get the carpenter to break my door.

Feel you about our constant underachievement. I have said many times here that we have had the players (selected and not selected) to make the Semis of every World Cup since 1994 (including the missed one in 2006), except for 1998.

[marko]

That was funny

I choose to live in Sweden for reasons known to myself, but i will rather talk about football even though the sun does not shine for 6 months like you said, to be honest, i don't really care if Sweden are rated number 5 or number 1, they were there for the taking last night, the swedish commentators were happy when the referee blew the whistle, I can imagine in terms of raw talent, only the Brazilians can match Nigeria, sorry the country and continent are under achieving, Nigeria in particular, i have been watching Nigerian football for over 25 years, nations cup, youth competitions, world cup, you name it, i have seen every game live, maybe i am still suffering from the depression of the 1994 world cup when we were like a couple of minutes to the quarter-final, yes i washed my car for 5 hours after the game in west London, even washed the aerial! jokes aside, Nigeria should be up there with the best and until they get there, i will continue to criticise!!

Sat on the edge of my bed and stared into space for about 10 - 12 hours. Night came, morning came. I did not even lie down. My mum was threatening to get the carpenter to break my door.

Feel you about our constant underachievement. I have said many times here that we have had the players (selected and not selected) to make the Semis of every World Cup since 1994 (including the missed one in 2006), except for 1998.

What i said might come across like a joke but believe me it was real, me and a couple of friends in west london were depressed, till this very day, i refuse to watch clips of that game, yesterday, with all things being equal, we should have thrashed sweden hands down, it should have been their coach that should have kneeling looking for divine intervention, sorry with that talent on display, i expect nothing less

[lagos777]

I don't any one on this thread has mentioned how bad the swede coach is. If our coach is bad, she must be terrible.

[Catalyst]

Congrats SF. Well done.

Wow Ordega, Okobi, Oshoala, Oparanozi......wow wow wow awesome players.

Please P-Dede abeg smile nau. Abeg nau, smile small.

[marko]

I don't any one on this thread has mentioned how bad the swede coach is. If our coach is bad, she must be terrible.

Dont think she is a bad coach, she made sure the team exploited every weakness Nigeria displayed on the pitch and they got 3 goals from doing just that, on pure talent alone, Nigeria beats sweden hands down, player for player

[Enyi]

i think pajimoh says it all.....Nigerians will complain, win, lose, draw.....

and for odas and co.....goodluck

[platinum]

I don't any one on this thread has mentioned how bad the swede coach is. If our coach is bad, she must be terrible.

...

[fabio]

I don't any one on this thread has mentioned how bad the swede coach is. If our coach is bad, she must be terrible.

...

Their coach said it was due to inexperience and they were forced to make substitutions.