The coach of Italian Serie A side Roma Jose Mourinho has praised the defence of Slavia Prague marshalled by former Nigeria U20 defender Igho Ogbu in his team’s 0-2 loss in the Europa League, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Mourinho’s team are already through to the knock out round of the tournament but the coach was keen to seal a win to keep his players motivation on a high ahead of this weekend Rome derby against Lazio.
They however conceded two goals in the second half to lose the game leaving the coach unhappy with his players, particularly his forwards who found it hard to break down the defence of the Czech Republic side.
” Credit to Slavia, they deserve to win because we didn’t create enough and even when we did their defenders were up to the task. We needed to win and we didn’t which is not making me happy , but if you don’t take your chances then you can’t win”, Mourinho said in the post game conference.
The defence he is referring to was anchored by Ogbu, who was a member of the 2019 Nigeria U20 team to the world cup in Poland. On three separate occasions he robbed Roma’s striker Romelu Lukaku denying him any sight at goal.
His form hasn’t gone unnoticed as he was provisionally invited to the Super Eagles for the final game in the AFCON qualifiers, but didn’t make the final cut for the game.
Ade Emmanuel
