Cybereagles

Nigeria sensing an easy prey, turned on the heat just after interval with Simon creating problems down the right. Further, the increased Nigerian pressure on the ball deep in the Cape Verde half was making the host defense jittery on the artificial turf. At the other end, the hosts depended on deep runs behind the defense to slip through the offside traps. But as the game tilted towards an even display that had been hitherto nonexistence, a surprise suddenly reared its head. A Cape Verde defender, more than 40 yards away from his goal, felt pressure and suddenly and inexplicably volleyed a long back pass over his goalkeeper and into the net to deliver all three points to Nigeria with a quarter of an hour left still to play.

In spite of the domination, Nigeria has to be concerned in the long run. The goalkeeping by Maduka Okoye was horrendous as he gave up a goal when it had seemed more difficult for the hosts to score. Nigeria had dominated up to that moment. Yet, the host team was fortunate in the 19th minute as they beat Nigeria's offside trap. Okoye had been positioned to snuff out an attempt from the left side by the hosts. Instead, he still conceded! He let a ball rifled to his covered side go passed him as his defense stood in bewilderment. It was a goofing moment and he will be happy that Nigeria was able to recover and still win the game.