Chris Nwaeze gave Nigeria the lead in the 60th minute by heading home a free kick from Wisdom Ubani but less than ten minutes after scoring he was sent off after picking his second booking of the game.
Côte d’Ivoire took advantage of playing against a ten man Nigerian team when they level with the last luck of the game to deny Nigeria the chance of topping the group after the first round of games.
Owngoalnigeria.com takes a look at five things we noticed during the course of the game.
- Solid Centre Back Pairing – The Kwara United centre back duo of Christopher Nwaeze and Isiah Ejeh showed enough as a pair to keep the Ivorians at bay until Nwaeze was sent off. As a pair they snuffed and dealt with everything thrown at them.
2. Uncoordinated In Midfield – The team created most of their chances from dead ball situations with only two coming from open play. The midfield was far away from the defence and didn’t look coordinated for large spell of the game. No clear cut way on how to break down defenses from open play.
3. Blunt Attack – The main striker for the game Peter Olawale only had one shot at goal for the entire duration of the game. It shows how poor the team was in attack. Going forward coach Ladan Bosso will have to address their shortcoming in that regards by probably changing personnels in attack.
4. Moses Solomon Looks A Player – While it’s hard to pick out a player who did exceptionally well from a game that was devoid of anything spectacular from any individual Solomon stood out for the Nigerians. The Calabar Rovers left back was solid in defence and also showed good pace to join the attack when he need to.
5. Afraid Of Shooting – The Nigerian team looked very shy in the box of their opponent with indecision their biggest undoing. The team failed to shoot despite having loads of possession around the box. The idea of passing their way into a goal scoring chance backfired as they lack the player with the final pass to cut open the defence.
