AFCON 2021: The art vs the science of a defeat.
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:39 pm
Regardless of the coach Nigeria has major problems.
We have academies all over Nigeria. you have products of these academies ending up in Europe. You have products of these academies being the backbone of the recent triumphant U-17 FIFA tournaments, yet when all these players come back, we have no attacking structure except dependency on individual brilliance, athleticism and/or luck.
WTF!!!
The problem is two fold.
1. Player evaluation.
We need to raise our evaluative capacity big time!
It is a known fact that the total amount most professional footballers have with the ball during a game is at most 5 mins.
Fully digest that statement. 22 players on the pitch. If you add up your time when you have possession of the ball, it is at most 5 mins.
So what does a player do when they don't have the ball?
It then brings us to the point of proper player evaluation. You select a player for what he does when he has the ball, what does the player do when a teammate has the ball, and what does the player do when the opposing team has the ball.
Throughout the tournament, go review what the offensive players do when their teammates have the ball. Static. No one running into space/channels. No one pulling defenders away from the ball to create channels for other players. No off-the-ball movement.
The Nigerian players were relatively good only if the player had the ball. Some attempted to showcase their skills with nothing ultimately much to show.
What about the part when the opposing team has the ball?
Eguavoen attempted to have the players press the opposition in their half for quick recovery of the ball. That required a higher energy production than the players were used to during Rohr's era. In the Rohr era, it appears the players were instructed to sit back in their half, and pray or hope for a counter attack.
2. Team fundamentals/efficiency
What is shocking for Nigerian professional players is the amount of wasted effort.
Example. Free kicks. An outcome of a free kick must be ...
(A) ideally a goal,
(B) a goal keeper makes the save,
(C) the wall does its job or
(D) redirect the play with a pass to an open teammate for a better shot.
4 options. Go watch some of the free kicks. Over the bar. Not on target. Completely wasted opportunities.
Unbelievable!
I don't even want to go into corner kicks.
You have to wonder the practice/ effort these players put into their craft in the presence or absence of a coach.
There is more.
Crosses. Eguavoen was to going to emphasize wingplay. The two wingers had to deliver crosses. It never happened.
Moses Simon to his credit kept two defenders focused on him. If he got free, he was headed for goal. What about the other winger? Zero output.
With this emphasis on wing play, other teammates are expected to share the understanding that if the winger gets the ball, his next move is to look for an outlet pass to players attacking the opponents goal. That understanding NEVER materialized. George Finidi's effectiveness and multiple contributions were anchored on this item. That understanding that if I got the ball, head to goal. I will deliver a cross or a pass.
Was that understanding created or reinforced throughout all the 4 games from either winger?
There was no effort to get the ball over the defenders for aerial efforts.
There was no effort to play to the edges of the penalty box. Opposing goalie can't come out, defenders facing their goal, creating forced error situations. The game is about mistakes, player's level of understanding, decisions at the right time, and capitalizing on it.
The only offensive style was to get the forwards to waltz or dribble into the box before shooting. A very low efficiency effort.
On to Nigerian midfielders. Because the offensive players don't move without the ball (that part of what do you do when your teammate has the ball), the midfielder has to have extra touches. With each touch, it gives time for the defenders to pick up any opposing player. The midfielder's outlet options increasingly get limited. Yet, the midfielders don't have the ability to shoot from outside the box on target.
Tunisia's only game plan was to compact the space, play the game in their half and drag the game to penalties.
They got a goal from a bad sequence of defensive errors, and a goalie error, got a man up thru the Iwobi red card, killed the game, and the rest is history.
Are we still going to be depend on the art (flair, individual brilliance, spontaneity) or the science (completely and properly executing team fundamentals)? Blessed with flair, can't we up the game a bit by also executing the team fundamentals very well?
Sit back when your team plays Brazil or Germany. The team will concede not less than 10 free kicks and/or corner kicks each and every time you play them.
First half against Tunisia. No shots on goal.
The elephant in the room is clearly we don't have a gelling strike force in the absence of Osimhen.
Cynical Italy took out Amokachi, and Amunike in WC 94, coupled with a defensive pivot, bad game management, and we lost. What happens if a team cynically takes out Osimhen. I did NOT mention Ghana oh! We are back to square one.
The Osimhen absence turned out to be a great opportunity to evaluate different attacking options. As I said over previous threads, 5+ years of Rohr, and his insistence on certain strikers, and conservative formation especially in friendlies has caught up with us. We lost years of finding attacking players, and molding a force. We misused friendlies. Most Nigerian players recruited to go play attack in Europe, yet we had a wrong hire, fraud of a coach NOT playing to their strengths.
Overall, a decent effort by Eguavoen and his crew with the limited amount of time to reorient the SuperEagles after the Rohr/Pinnick mess.
He almost pulled a miracle with the NFF's delayed action with Rohr leaving not much time for solid player callups, and preparation.
If Eguavoen desires to coach, and play the pressing/possession game, his callups would have to reflect an understanding of off-the ball skills by each player, and a commitment, at the very minimum, by each individual player to increase their fitness levels beyond what is being done at their respective clubs. At a tournament, where a team plays a match at a high level every three or four days, the lack of fitness was very apparent. For the amount of pressing football we attempted, we need to close the game in the 1st half, and have the other team chase the game later.
We have academies all over Nigeria. you have products of these academies ending up in Europe. You have products of these academies being the backbone of the recent triumphant U-17 FIFA tournaments, yet when all these players come back, we have no attacking structure except dependency on individual brilliance, athleticism and/or luck.
WTF!!!
The problem is two fold.
1. Player evaluation.
We need to raise our evaluative capacity big time!
It is a known fact that the total amount most professional footballers have with the ball during a game is at most 5 mins.
Fully digest that statement. 22 players on the pitch. If you add up your time when you have possession of the ball, it is at most 5 mins.
So what does a player do when they don't have the ball?
It then brings us to the point of proper player evaluation. You select a player for what he does when he has the ball, what does the player do when a teammate has the ball, and what does the player do when the opposing team has the ball.
Throughout the tournament, go review what the offensive players do when their teammates have the ball. Static. No one running into space/channels. No one pulling defenders away from the ball to create channels for other players. No off-the-ball movement.
The Nigerian players were relatively good only if the player had the ball. Some attempted to showcase their skills with nothing ultimately much to show.
What about the part when the opposing team has the ball?
Eguavoen attempted to have the players press the opposition in their half for quick recovery of the ball. That required a higher energy production than the players were used to during Rohr's era. In the Rohr era, it appears the players were instructed to sit back in their half, and pray or hope for a counter attack.
2. Team fundamentals/efficiency
What is shocking for Nigerian professional players is the amount of wasted effort.
Example. Free kicks. An outcome of a free kick must be ...
(A) ideally a goal,
(B) a goal keeper makes the save,
(C) the wall does its job or
(D) redirect the play with a pass to an open teammate for a better shot.
4 options. Go watch some of the free kicks. Over the bar. Not on target. Completely wasted opportunities.
Unbelievable!
I don't even want to go into corner kicks.
You have to wonder the practice/ effort these players put into their craft in the presence or absence of a coach.
There is more.
Crosses. Eguavoen was to going to emphasize wingplay. The two wingers had to deliver crosses. It never happened.
Moses Simon to his credit kept two defenders focused on him. If he got free, he was headed for goal. What about the other winger? Zero output.
With this emphasis on wing play, other teammates are expected to share the understanding that if the winger gets the ball, his next move is to look for an outlet pass to players attacking the opponents goal. That understanding NEVER materialized. George Finidi's effectiveness and multiple contributions were anchored on this item. That understanding that if I got the ball, head to goal. I will deliver a cross or a pass.
Was that understanding created or reinforced throughout all the 4 games from either winger?
There was no effort to get the ball over the defenders for aerial efforts.
There was no effort to play to the edges of the penalty box. Opposing goalie can't come out, defenders facing their goal, creating forced error situations. The game is about mistakes, player's level of understanding, decisions at the right time, and capitalizing on it.
The only offensive style was to get the forwards to waltz or dribble into the box before shooting. A very low efficiency effort.
On to Nigerian midfielders. Because the offensive players don't move without the ball (that part of what do you do when your teammate has the ball), the midfielder has to have extra touches. With each touch, it gives time for the defenders to pick up any opposing player. The midfielder's outlet options increasingly get limited. Yet, the midfielders don't have the ability to shoot from outside the box on target.
Tunisia's only game plan was to compact the space, play the game in their half and drag the game to penalties.
They got a goal from a bad sequence of defensive errors, and a goalie error, got a man up thru the Iwobi red card, killed the game, and the rest is history.
Are we still going to be depend on the art (flair, individual brilliance, spontaneity) or the science (completely and properly executing team fundamentals)? Blessed with flair, can't we up the game a bit by also executing the team fundamentals very well?
Sit back when your team plays Brazil or Germany. The team will concede not less than 10 free kicks and/or corner kicks each and every time you play them.
First half against Tunisia. No shots on goal.
The elephant in the room is clearly we don't have a gelling strike force in the absence of Osimhen.
Cynical Italy took out Amokachi, and Amunike in WC 94, coupled with a defensive pivot, bad game management, and we lost. What happens if a team cynically takes out Osimhen. I did NOT mention Ghana oh! We are back to square one.
The Osimhen absence turned out to be a great opportunity to evaluate different attacking options. As I said over previous threads, 5+ years of Rohr, and his insistence on certain strikers, and conservative formation especially in friendlies has caught up with us. We lost years of finding attacking players, and molding a force. We misused friendlies. Most Nigerian players recruited to go play attack in Europe, yet we had a wrong hire, fraud of a coach NOT playing to their strengths.
Overall, a decent effort by Eguavoen and his crew with the limited amount of time to reorient the SuperEagles after the Rohr/Pinnick mess.
He almost pulled a miracle with the NFF's delayed action with Rohr leaving not much time for solid player callups, and preparation.
If Eguavoen desires to coach, and play the pressing/possession game, his callups would have to reflect an understanding of off-the ball skills by each player, and a commitment, at the very minimum, by each individual player to increase their fitness levels beyond what is being done at their respective clubs. At a tournament, where a team plays a match at a high level every three or four days, the lack of fitness was very apparent. For the amount of pressing football we attempted, we need to close the game in the 1st half, and have the other team chase the game later.