The Super Eagles of Nigeria under the guide of Coach Stephen Keshi Okechukwu Keshi, on Monday, 16th June, 2014 shattered the hopes and expectations of Nigerians as they failed to beat the Iranian Senior National football team at Brazil FIFA 2014 World Cup.
Before the match, many Nigerians have written off the Iranian national football team, saying, Iran is under dog to Nigeria when you talk about football. Some even said, Iran match is a much win match for the Eagles as Iran has no pedigree compare to Nigeria in football history.
Owing to that many predicted 4-0, some even said super Eagles will pummel the Iranians with goals but to their chagrim, the Iranians caged the Eagles on a day Nigerians wanted the Eagles to fly to high heaven.
Keshi is in for trouble, in the world cup. The Super Eagles is not yet a team, it takes a team to blend to win a match and competitions, which is not there in the case of the Super Eagles.
The Eagles played out their strength in the first half with the same idea they started with and still played same in the second half of the encounter. Believing in fast, breaks through the central arch of the Iranian defence with wrong positioning from the Eagles.
Moses and Ahmed passes are not pinpointed passes that could have made the Eagles score a goal in that match. Hence Emenike could not benefit from all the pull outs throughout the 90 minutes of the match.
The Eagles problems were wrong positioning coupled with lack of reading ability, follow up and timing. Thanks to Vincent Enyeama who saved those crucial goal bound moves of the Iranians with his positioning, reading and timing skill.
Mike, Onazi, Moses and Musa were traitors on a day Nigerians wanted the best from them. They simply were not blending with each other. Moses is characterized on holding on to the ball too long before releasing it and Ahmed is lacking in reading, positioning and timing, when pulling out his crosses. Mikel is too slow in distributing the ball, and also wrong and weak passes to the attack front. Onazi too forces himself too much hence he falls at will. Emenike fails to position well to receive passes from the midfield, despite as he tried. Ambrose passes were not pinpointed to the attack. The same problem of poor reading and timing ability.
No thanks to the Iranian coach who did a careful study of Keshi match plan through Keshi’s past clips. And it paid out well for him as he caged the Eagles in their plan to score an early minutes goal through the central half of his defence.
Keshi must step up his game else the Eagles may not qualify from group F. the Iran match as exposed Keshi ability and limitation, that, keshi is not a good match reader.
Again, Keshi has to invent formations and plans to render his opponents match plan or forget about progressing to the next stage of the competition. ###
