NIGERIA 0 V 1 GERMANY GAME THREAD

[Catalyst]

That Germany Nigerian - Akpoguma - has not been that impressive.

What is amusing to you?

Anyway he did not impress me. I will take our Musa any day over him, at least up to this point.

I am not sure what he was doing out there on the right most of the time.

He looked like DM forced to play RB. I hope what I saw today is not his best game.

[Tbite]

I bet you that on the Plane back...Garba will continue pressing the button for the hostess

Hostess: Yes Sir, can I help you
Garba: ehh ehmm, you are here..can I make a substitute
Hostess: A little too late for that sir, but we have some Juice
Garba: No I will wait, for the plane to almost land before I ask you

[Goldleaf]

There is a reason why Clemence Westerhof selected tall, powerful, physically imposing players to play for Nigeria in the early 90s. Saviour and Mustapha were easily shoved aside by Akpoguma all night long. That boy must be 6ft 5in at least. The shortest player in Germany must be at least 6ft 1in whereas all our boys are small. That Mukhtar boy for Germany is another giant. Even when Awoniyi got a one-on-one opportunity, he was briskly shoved aside. Ndidi was the only one who could match the Germans. That was the difference.

This FE is not good enough.

So why did we keep woofing the ball upwards?

You cannot necessarily determine the genetics of our best players (Abdul Ganiyu and Saleh at the AYC were as tall as the Germans but not as good as the players that we took to NZ), but should try tailor your game and tactics to their strength(s).

Anyway, the principal difference between the teams was NOT physical. The Germans are neither taller nor more physical than the Senegalese that we beat twice at their home. The gulf is in technical skills and tactics.

Sorry but if you want to compare the Germans to the Senegalese, you are on your own. The Germans were fitter, physically imposing, pacier and had much better ball control. Actually, I think you will find that this was an easy workout for them. Technically, tactically and physically we were no match for them. Our edge prior to this match was our pace which was easily contained.

Anyone thinking this FE team could have beaten this Germany team has permanent residence in cloud cuckoo land!

[Gotti]

The Germans were better but still can't wrap my head around three things.

The unforced turnovers (errors)?
The hoofing the ball forward against taller agile defenders...they tried that same $%^& against Brazil?
The substitution pattern and not using all your subs?

At least put up a fight...

Anybody who references the scoreline as evidence that it was close or a good game is a nutter or did not watch the game.

[Robotnik]

Better team won.............end of story.

Kudos to Kevin Akpoguma and co.

Back to bed for me.

yup

[Cellular]

That was a game when the coach should have gone for broke and brought in the game changers on the bench, at least in the 80th minute when the Germans were tiring out was the best time, what did he do, brought in a defensive midfielder, ohh m days, talk about the illiteracy of Nigerian coaches

Marko - do you want to summarise the stereotypical Nigerian performance again...summarised by always doing the same thing and expecting to get a different result even when its not clearly working...

- do the long pass..even it does not work....atempt to kick it higher and further and hope for the best

- remember to always lose the ball to the opponent on a regular and consistent basis

- take your time to settle into a game, afterall the first 10 to 15 minutes are not really part of the game...its only for warming up

- throw-ins are an opportunity to pass the ball to your opponent.

- keep trying to thread that 0.5um of a pass when the simpler option will do

- it's not chess so why concentrate....

- our old favourite of defending against set pieces is a complete waste of time...lets just get on with the playing

- oh every free kick or set piece opportunity we have is more likely a chance to reduce the population of beds or to try to injure the opponent by taking out his balls or damaging his chest...the opponents wall is the target..not that space between the wall and the net

- expect the unexpected...even when it is obvious that what you are hoping to happen on the day has really never happened before

you don scout us finish!

[obaGol]

No surprises here.

The weaknesses were apparent during the AYC - from the silly and typical Nigerian penchant for turning over the ball and lack of intelligence in off the ball movement and positioning, to the rather dodgy defence and the good old police ball....these were apparent....we got away with it because we faced inferior opposition that could and would not capitalise on this.

I remember saying this that we would be found out if we did not fix what were glaring deficiencies while some were getting carried away with names.

This was a typically i am sorry to say un-intelligent Nigerian performance.

Thanks Manu - over to the NFF, send him on a training or attachment or something, send him back to the U-17s or whatever, get him to file in a technical report.

By the way a major condition before offering any coach a contract is ensuring that they file in a technical report of how their teams fared and what were their areas of shortcomings after every major competition or qualifying series....failure to do that should result in them never getting offered a contract again in the future.
These guys have to show that they learn and are learning on the job otherwise they should never be offered contracts.

Anyway back to the Womens WC, lets hope they fix their obvious deficiencies otherwise their performance against Sweden will be the highlight of their tourney.

Good luck to the girls.

[Enugu II]

There is this assumption that by playing guys on the bench we would have won. Really? Sometimes we have to admit the truth - the Germans were better. IMHO, they could have won going away.

[Gotti]

its a miracle how this game ended only 1-0

Can't make sense of the subs

[theYemster]

Daft coach, you had redeemable options on your bench but stuck to your rubbish...aboki..I guess i'm supporting Mali.

The same options that stunk against Brazil...or other ones?

[Goldleaf]

That Germany Nigerian - Akpoguma - has not been that impressive.

What is amusing to you?

Anyway he did not impress me. I will take our Musa any day over him, at least up to this point.

I am not sure what he was doing out there on the right most of the time.

He looked like DM forced to play RB. I hope what I saw today is not his best game.

Are you sure you watched the match? Right now, there is a significant gulf in class btw Akpoguma and Muhammed. Akpoguma is ready for Bundesliga. Musa still needs much more work.

[Cellular]

There is this assumption that by playing guys on the bench we would have won. Really? Sometimes we have to admit the truth - the Germans were better. IMHO, they could have won going away.

Prof., it is not that we would have won but the guys on the bench had the skillset that could have been useful against a German team who in the second half had taken their foot off the pedal.

We DID NOT FORCE A SAVE BY THEIR GOALIE!!!!

Was the aim to have the Germans score an own goal or somn?

[hestonap]

No surprises here.

The weaknesses were apparent during the AYC - from the silly and typical Nigerian penchant for turning over the ball and lack of intelligence in off the ball movement and positioning, to the rather dodgy defence and the good old police ball....these were apparent....we got away with it because we faced inferior opposition that could and would not capitalise on this.

I remember saying this that we would be found out if we did not fix what were glaring deficiencies while some were getting carried away with names.

This was a typically i am sorry to say un-intelligent Nigerian performance.

Thanks Manu - over to the NFF, send him on a training or attachment or something, send him back to the U-17s or whatever, get him to file in a technical report.

By the way a major condition before offering any coach a contract is ensuring that they file in a technical report of how their teams fared and what were their areas of shortcomings after every major competition or qualifying series....failure to do that should result in them never getting offered a contract again in the future.
These guys have to show that they learn and are learning on the job otherwise they should never be offered contracts.

Anyway back to the Womens WC, lets hope they fix their obvious deficiencies otherwise their performance against Sweden will be the highlight of their tourney.

Good luck to the girls.

sorry to be a kill joy, i will not be so sure the women can do any better than the men, the problem is an inherent Nigerian problem, the organization is a sham, the coaches are a sham, the footballing structure is a huge sham, even the players despite the raw talent are a huge scam, they lack basic footballing intelligence, they were making mistakes after mistakes thinking a lucky break could come from doing just so, look at Musa set play for example, he screwed up every time yet others could not step in because Nigeria simply does not have players that learn this basic footballing concept, even Musa does not practice his set plays, if he did, you will simply see the results today, i already gave a 10 pointer and i stand by it, over reliance of raw talent, The Germans did what they needed to do and saw off every Nigerian challenge

Bros,

You are preaching to the choir here.

However there is that Nigerian 'optimism' that is difficult to shake off even when it is obvious what is going to happen...we hope for the best even when it is obvious are preparation is geared towards the worst possible outcome.

Truth is...i stopped been disappointed about our mediocrity a long time ago.....when you have been disappointed over and over and over again especially when such disappointement can be easily avoided...you learn to become thick skinned about issues like this.

The reality is that the same way a father can not give up on his child....there is an emotional attachment that is often unreasonable that comes from being a fan...hence the misdirected optimism many a time on my part.

[Tbite]

That German Guy that scored was MOTM for me.

Without him....Nigeria could even have won this match (Even with Garba and the questionable lineup).

That guy was VENOM! Absolutely dangerous! I expect to see him become a successful player!

He has it all! He has it all! He is imposing, tall, strong, crafty, good at scoring obviously......he was like 3 players in one!

If that guy was not on the pitch, maybe we would have had a chance...early on.

[Metho scorpion]

..guys go enjoy Brazil and Uruguay's overtime...hope it goes to penalty...lets hope the baton is not going to be passed on to our girls later in the day...

[green4life]

The Germans were better but still can't wrap my head around three things.

The unforced turnovers (errors)?
The hoofing the ball forward against taller agile defenders...they tried that same $%^& against Brazil?
The substitution pattern and not using all your subs?

At least put up a fight...

Anybody who references the scoreline as evidence that it was close or a good game is a nutter or did not watch the game.

Bro Celly, the unforced errors were routine during the AYC but we we're much better than the opposition in overall retention of possession plus they couldn't punish our errors during that AYC. Also, the long ball tactics led to at least three or more 'easy' goals for Awoniyi during that AYC. So those bad habits weren't addressed. The sloppy passing in front of our box during the AYC was a norm. I chalked it down to overconfidence then but it's obvious that it's straight up bad habits that went uncorrected.

[ogiso]

It might be an idea for Siasia to qualify for a tournament first, eh? #

It seems the only Nigerian coach that goes into a tournament and wants to win is Siasia

KPAM! And really, why NOT use your subs when you are down and they can possibly help?

[marutimon]

There is this assumption that by playing guys on the bench we would have won. Really? Sometimes we have to admit the truth - the Germans were better. IMHO, they could have won going away.

The truth is we'll never know, but the footballing careers of our 'benchwarmers' can give us a good idea.
The other truth is that we called out this starting XI and rightfully so. Garba made so many errors in the starting lineup three substitutes was not enough to correct this.

[tunde72]

Make i delete the game from my DVR jare. Manu messed up badly

[Gotti]

There is this assumption that by playing guys on the bench we would have won. Really? Sometimes we have to admit the truth - the Germans were better. IMHO, they could have won going away.

Well, we'll never know now, would we...

What we do know is that some of the dudes on the field underwhelmed (perhaps the dudes on the bench would have been worse - again, we'll never know), and we cannot understand why you are losing a gunfight and keep spare bullets in the holster. Did the coaches select the wrong squad of players afterall?

[marko]

That was a game when the coach should have gone for broke and brought in the game changers on the bench, at least in the 80th minute when the Germans were tiring out was the best time, what did he do, brought in a defensive midfielder, ohh m days, talk about the illiteracy of Nigerian coaches

Marko - do you want to summarise the stereotypical Nigerian performance again...summarised by always doing the same thing and expecting to get a different result even when its not clearly working...

- do the long pass..even it does not work....atempt to kick it higher and further and hope for the best

- remember to always lose the ball to the opponent on a regular and consistent basis

- take your time to settle into a game, afterall the first 10 to 15 minutes are not really part of the game...its only for warming up

- throw-ins are an opportunity to pass the ball to your opponent.

- keep trying to thread that 0.5um of a pass when the simpler option will do

- it's not chess so why concentrate....

- our old favourite of defending against set pieces is a complete waste of time...lets just get on with the playing

- oh every free kick or set piece opportunity we have is more likely a chance to reduce the population of beds or to try to injure the opponent by taking out his balls or damaging his chest...the opponents wall is the target..not that space between the wall and the net

- expect the unexpected...even when it is obvious that what you are hoping to happen on the day has really never happened before

you don scout us finish!

we compare notes
1- the quality opposition is more than likely to score within the first 5 minutes if not less at kickoff, seen this happen too many times, our players are still warming up when the opposing team strikes the killer blow
2- The goal keeper never screams at the defence, they are either too timid or expects the defenders to do their job
3- In an event that Nigeria takes the lead, they over celebrate and by the time they have calmed down, the oppostion has put another one past us, seen this too many times
4- The defenders leave too many glaring open spaces for the opposition to exploit, sometimes you see the opposing team getting a few one on one chances with the keeper
5- at the stroke of half time, Nigerian teams are vulnerable to another goal scored by the opposing side
6- The average Nigerian team cannot concentrate for 90 minutes
7- There is an over reliance of individual talent to make up for the short comings of shoody preparation
8- Opposing players who have no business scoring in a football match usually scores against Nigeria, example defenders, Spanish full back Alba scoring within 3 minutes at the confederation cup, or Heinz, Argentine defender scoring within 5 minutes at the world cup in 2010
9- as we have mentioned 1000 times, a corner kick or freekick is as good as a penalty for the opposition
10- since 1994 Nigerian teams have always lost by the case of bad defending or a temporary lapse in concentration, recent example when France beat Nigeria 2 nil, that game was going into extra time until Enyeama gifted France an opener

[marutimon]

The Germans were better but still can't wrap my head around three things.

The unforced turnovers (errors)?
The hoofing the ball forward against taller agile defenders...they tried that same $%^& against Brazil?
The substitution pattern and not using all your subs?

At least put up a fight...

Anybody who references the scoreline as evidence that it was close or a good game is a nutter or did not watch the game.

Bro Celly, the unforced errors were routine during the AYC but we we're much better than the opposition in overall retention of possession plus they couldn't punish our errors during that AYC. Also, the long ball tactics led to at least three or more 'easy' goals for Awoniyi during that AYC. So those bad habits weren't addressed. The sloppy passing in front of our box during the AYC was a norm. I chalked it down to overconfidence then but it's obvious that it's straight up bad habits that went uncorrected.

I also think that Matthew had a very good passing range and made the difference. Without him there was no one to make those passes.
One would note however that at the AYC the wins were by a slim margin. More imporantly we played our own game.

[papilo]

Daft coach, you had redeemable options on your bench but stuck to your rubbish...aboki..I guess i'm supporting Mali.

The same options that stunk against Brazil...or other ones?

They did not stink against Brazil. That was our best game in my opinion. All that was needed was the right balance and just one change from that first game should have been enough in my opinion.