The noise from the social media after Nigeria beat Poland in Wroclaw penultimate Friday was deafening. It was as if the Super Eagles lost the game, with paralysed analysis bothering on the people’s primordial sentiments on how the team should look. Chief among the complaints was the clamour for Vincent Enyeama’s return, even when we know that he has been inactive in Europe this season. The submissions gave the impression that they would rather have Enyeama in goal with a walking stick than allow Francis Uzoho man the goalpost in Russia. Let me not say what have gone down in the social media since Eagles lost 2-0 to Serbia in England. Everyone talking about going to the drawing board to plot new tactics. I wonder if this board isn’t in tatters.
The friendly matches against Poland and Serbia were meant to test the players and see how they would fare against countries that have similar playing patterns and mentality like the Croatians, Nigeria’s opening game opponents at the Russia 2018 World Cup on June 16. Besides, the two matches were meant to expose the team’s lapses so that the coaches could find the right players for weak positions. I’m glad that both games served the purpose, with the tie against Serbia showing that Eagles’ regular back men have no substitutes. It is also not too late to look for reliable defenders to rival the first team players.
Enyeama was awesome with the Eagles. When Adegboye Onigbinde told us (Nigeria sporting press) in Japan that he was fielding Enyeama ahead of Ike Shorunmu in Nigeria’s last World Cup game against England at the Korea/Japan World Cup, many wondered if he could stop David Beckham’s free-kicks. Enyeama kept a clean sheet in that game. The rest is history.
What these analysts don’t know is that Uzoho will only gain experience playing games such as the one against Poland. The essence of friendly games is to correct mistakes. Most teams at this time are work-in-progress, like the coaches say. It is worthy to note that Rohr listed Uzoho in the Serbian game, making the goalkeeper know that his fate doesn’t lie with what critics say but how the manager rates him – boosting his confidence.
Two balls slipped through the defence into the net. The first which happened in the Poland game was debatable. But the slip in the first half against Serbia was a good goal. Rohr needs to warn his defenders and Uzoho that such slips would be captured by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) machine, which wasn’t used in the two matches. On the score of 10, I will rate Uzoho 7, as a first timer in such high profile matches.
Sticking to Uzoho underscores the importance that Gernot Rohr attaches to using this Mundial to give Nigeria a team that would have a lifespan of 10 years, which is what Clemens Westerhof did when he started rebuilding the Eagles in 1990. Nigeria is going to the Russia 2018 World Cup with the youngest squad. Nobody is casting any doubt on the players’ ages because most of the players pledged their allegiance to Nigeria from other countries, although they have Nigerian parentage. It simple means that their ages are incontestable, how being born in Europe. We are tired of always rebuilding Eagles after every failed expedition. The drawing board we always refer to after every aborted trip must be tattered now.
It is obvious that many players have lost their shirts, given their contributions in the last two games, especially the one against Serbia, which we lost by two goals. Rohr must dig deep into his bag of tactics to evolve a system that would make the players play at their best. The only consolation is that Nigeria’s last group opponents at the Mundial, Argentina were whacked 6-1 by Spain. I know many pundits would say that the results would have been better if Lionel Messi had played. Hmmm! The same excuse when Nigeria beat Argentina 4-2 last year in Russia. Failure beckons, if Argentina’s coach must be told the truth.
Rohr, happily, isn’t perturbed by the defeat. He gambled on Ahmed Musa to lead the team’s attack, which is normal for friendly matches. It didn’t work. He played Awuziem in place of injured Leon Balogun; it was catastrophic. Oguenyi Onazi was lost in the game just Victor Moses, who apparently played to avoid injuries. The results of friendly games will count for nothing, when the chips are down during the Mundial. Balogun’s absence in the team’s defence showed when the Serbians launched their onslaughts. They effectively utilised Eagles’ weakness to play aerial balls, especially from set-pieces. Rohr should find a way to play Ola Aina regularly. He is big and strong, scared and plays regularly for Hull City in the English Championship, even though he is a Chelsea star on loan. Aina can dash forward to score like he does with Hull City.
Moses appears unable to carry the fortunes of the team, if marked like we saw against Serbia. Perhaps because Ivanovic, the Serbia captain, knew him – they were mates at Chelsea. One word- Moses isn’t Eagles messiah at the Mundial. Eagles, don’t have any undertaker in the mould of Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Neymar (Brazil), Thomas Muller (Germany), Paul Pogba (France), Hazard (Belguim) et al. I’m scared to pick Wilfred Ndidi as Nigeria’s undertaker because he lacks the World Cup experience. He isn’t also a prolific scorer for the Eagles, unlike the aforementioned players in their countries.
Alex Iwobi looks like the man to do the creative job for the team at the Mundial, only if he is told so now. There is an obvious reason for that. Nigeria head coach Gernot Rohr may have an exciting young squad to take to Russia but he hardly has creators like Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Iwobi is perhaps the nearest the Super Eagles have to a playmaker. He certainly looked like their best hope for a goal as they laboured against a disciplined Serbia.
A few people would argue that John Mikel Obi’s contributions were missing. True, but Mikel still needs a younger player, such as Iwobi to use his passes and dribbling runs to attract markers to him. This way, openings would be created for goals. Eagles’ midfielders in the two matches were tentative in their displays, with none of them willing to seize the initiative of being match winners reminiscent of the Nwankwo Kanu and Austin Okocha era.
With a dysfunctional midfield like we saw in the two matches, there is no way the strikers can work. Strikers are best utilised if the defence-splitting passes are there. They would find it easier to run into space to receive such passes, where the midfielders can dribble to unlock the oppositions’ defences. Our players’ resort to long balls to unlock defences was poor tactics as it rendered the strikers otiose. The manager needs to either look for the players (I wonder if there is the time) or find a better pattern of play that will bring out the players’ best qualities.
‘’Nigeria may have come away from Barnet licking their wounds, though it was largely to do with a youthful defence incapable of taming Aleksandar Mitrovic and the woeful display of Ahmed Musa as a central striker,’’ Standard Sports newspaper of England wrote on Wednesday.
“Rohr commended the boys and urged them not to drop their heads because no football team in the world wins all their games,” Eagles spokesman Toyin Ibitoye said.
“The coach told the team they should learn from this defeat but not suck, but rather go back to their clubs and keep fighting. He said what was most important after such a loss is how you react, he said we have to bounce back.”
“The coach reminded the boys that they have not been doing badly as a team and what has happened should be put behind. He said it is a game and they have done their part and should forget the rest. We have three more friendly matches to play before the World Cup proper. Ours is to take the positives from the Serbia game, study them critically and implement,’’ Ibitoye said.
It is good to know that NFF chieftains are on the same page with Rohr and the team. Amaju Pinnick’s statement underscored the need for all the parties to work towards getting Nigeria into the quarter-finals. At that stage, anything is possible, especially if Nigerians rally round the team. They could spring surprises.
Pinnick wrote this writer in a terse reply to an inquiry about his thoughts on the game: ‘’Trust me, it was a good preparatory game against Poland, for instance. We are satisfied. You learn more when you lose matches and learn less when you win games.
‘’I must congratulate Serbia for giving us a good game, which helped to expose the weaknesses of our team. This is the essence of playing such friendly games. The coaches have taken notes and we expect good reaction from them in subsequent matches before the World Cup proper in Russia.’’
