by Olusola Akinwale
The team I saw on Monday was not different from the lethargic Eagles that played against Greece and the USA prior to commencement of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The team lacked orderliness throughout the match.
The Super Eagles have once again shown us that they could play for ninety minutes with no moment of purple patches. The team’s have-no-faith-in-us performance against Iran was an emotional torture on the soccer faithful in the country. It was a kind of performance that aggravates the illness of a patient on his sickbed, a performance that calls to question the tactics of Coach Stephen Keshi.
I doubt if the Super Eagles (or chickens) wore their soccer boots to the pitch on Monday afternoon in Curitiba. I guess they had bartered their boots for stilettos with some Brazilian women. Or what could be responsible for their sluggish play, their immobility on the pitch against the Iranians. None of Keshi’s men was exceptional except Vincent Enyeama who made a brilliant save off an Iranian header in the first half. Our players played for ninety minutes as if they had stilettos on their feet. Their game lacked pace and cohesion, and sadly their handlers watched on helplessly.
Forget their presence in the dugout, Stephen Keshi and his assistants did not come to the game. Or I should say they came to the stadium still wearing their pyjamas, and so were sleepy on the bench throughout the duration of the match. If they weren’t sleep-heavy, they would see that Ramon Azeez’s contribution in the midfield was not helping the team’s cause and substitute him earlier. If they were not in pyjamas, their half-time pep talks would improve the team’s play in the second fourty-five minutes.
The team I saw on Monday was not different from the lethargic Eagles that played against Greece and the USA prior to commencement of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The team lacked orderliness throughout the match. I didn’t play amateur football (let alone professional football) and don’t have the least of football coaching badges. However, from watching the game over the years, I have observed that each team has players who take corner kicks and free kicks. For example, a Sami Khedira will never run to the corner flag to take a corner kick for the German Machine, it is Toni Kroos’s responsibility. Likewise, for the Three Lions of England, a Daniel Sturridge will not attempt a corner kick, it is Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard’s specialty. The same applies with free kicks. The exception to this principle occurs when these teams are trailing their opponents and racing against time. It is then that you can see any other players apart from their deadball specialists quickly take a corner kick.
Now the question is ‘who takes corner kicks for the Super Eagles’? You may be quick to answer ‘Mikel Obi’. But against Iran, the team showed that it had no player assigned this role. Victor Moses, Ahmed Musa and Ramon Azeez all wasted the corner kicks the team had before Mikel played the last corner kick of the match. Somebody should please tell Musa not to play corner kicks again. He is a poor crosser of the ball. He delivers corner kicks as if dwarfs were to flick on them. I wonder if they simulate deadball situations at training. I wonder if Keshi truly understands the area of prowess of each member of his squad: who among them is capable of taking free kicks and corner kicks.
There is no point telling Keshi that the buck stops with him (apology for the cliché). The Super Eagles performance must improve against Bosnia and Herzegovina. The team must be mobile on the pitch from start to finish. It must make us smile. On Saturday, I want the Big Boss to impress Nigerians with his tactical savvy and not his LAFA (locally acquired foreign accent). Skippo, I still trust in you.
Fly, Eagles, Fly.
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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
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