On Tuesday March 29, 2022, the ‘plane’ taking the Super Eagles to Qatar 2022 crash-landed on the tarmac of the Moshood Abiola International Stadium, Abuja.
Rather than take a long, torturous and painful forensic investigation to unearth the full extent and implications of the events of that night,……permit me to take a short-cut, cut out all the fine details, and look at a basic and most straightforward cause of this monumental catastrophe…. .
To start with,…… the Super Eagles did not actually lose the match. They did not lose the first match in Kumasi either. In both matches, they did not play as if their lives depended on it,… so they did not win.
On the other hand….the Black Stars were the worst I have ever seen……. last Tuesday, they were simply lucky….with only a single shot at the Nigerian goal throughout the 90 minutes
The Nigerian team..was poor…. the only ‘threat’ they posed being the tireless but harmless running of Osimhen.
…. ..in the absence of players with holding, dribbling, passing and creative skills in the midfield, Ghana deployed a very simple and very effective tactic … the same old and recycled system of play thèy’ve been deploying against Nigerian national teams since the 1960s.
It has worked well for them through the ages….disrupted ….only whenever Nigeria assembled exceptionally gifted and skillful mid-field players who could hold, dribble, pass and even shoot at goal,… seen in the eras of Muda Lawal, Alloysius Atuegbu, Chibuzor Ehilegu, Paul Okoku, Jay Jay Okocha, Mutiu Adepoju , etc
This time… Nigeria did not have the dreaded midfield players that would threaten them. Ghana saw that during AFCON 2021…..and capitalized on it in Kumasi and Abuja.
That’s why, the Ghana High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Rashid Bawa, could call me up the night he learned the two would be playing against each other, and confidently boasted that notwithstanding Ghana’s weaker team, they had Nigeria’s number.
As it now turns out.. he is right.
So, what did the Ghanaians do?
They went back to their simple, old, tried and tested system that every Nigerian coach worth his salt should know now. No other team plays Nigeria that same way.
At the end of the day, the stark reality is that the Super Eagles were not good enough. They did not play well.
The Ghanaians were worse in every department except team tactics……they have ‘Mother luck’ to thank for their trip to Qatar…..
At the end of the day, ….the pains are too deep. Some persons must be made to pay for our collective pain and humiliation.
For the full version of my opinion on this click on https://mathematical7.com/m7/?p=3098.
By Segun Odegbami, Former Captain, Super Eagles of Nigeria.
