Last Tuesday, Nigeria’s senior national football team (Super Eagles) was thrashed 4 – 1 by their Ghanaian counterparts (Black Stars), in a friendly match at the Griffin Park in London. As far as I am concerned, it was a shameful encounter for Nigeria but didn’t come as a surprise.
On Tuesday morning, Ghana’s leading daily newspaper Daily Graphic reported about the then-upcoming match. I am quoting paragraphes 7 and 8 of “All set for Ghana-Nigeria clash tonight” on page 46:
The Head Coach of Nigeria, Austin Eguaveon, said “this game must be seen as any normal friendly between two African countries in a foreign country,” he said.
He was full of respect for Claude Le Roy. “I am only 41 years and head coach of Nigeria for only two years, but Mr Le Roy has seen it all on the African continent and I can only be happy to have the oppurtunity to play against him and also learn from him,” he added.
I was already fumming before the match. Is something wrong with this coach? How can you approach a match thinking your opponent is greater than you? How then can you win when you are already self-defeated, psychologically? How?
Well, according to global news agency AFP: Ghana hammers Nigerians
Nigeria, in truth, were comprehensively outplayed, far from their billing as the highest-ranked African team according to Fifa´s statistics.
From start to finish Ghana looked the better organised. It helped, to start with, that they turned up on time, left waiting 30 minutes for Nigeria, who do little to avert the sense that they teeter forever on a precipice of their own making.
You can’t convince me that you are a great nation if you cannot organize yourselves to arrive promptly for a football match.
I’d conclude this piece with the conclusion of AFP’s report:
Even Mikel, though, could not prevent Eguavoen´s reign ending in the ignominy of a crushing defeat.
Shame on Equavoen!
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Young man,
I agree with you that once a man accepts defeat even before a match, then he is definitely going for defeat. Nigeria is blessed with so much talents and skills but we still have problem harnessing these resources to create the perfect team that we can all boast of.
This is not peculiar to football alone. This same is seen in every phase of our life. People have skills and yet still produce bad result. What do we say to that?
Nigeria is blessed with talented footballers, but highly bedevilled with bad administration. This is just another indicia to that.