Nigeria 1 v 2 Ivory Coast
10 Thoughts.
1. The occasion overwhelmed the boys. Ola Aina who had been solid all through suddenly couldn’t handle a one on one. Calvin Bassey looked shaky. Ajayi was confused. In short the whole team was disjointed. Even the compactness that carried them this far was missing.
2. Why did Zaidu make a return to the starting line up? God! Watch their first goal and you will see him brazenly leave the post that he was marking and blindly challenge for a ball out of reach. Post that the rule is you MAN IT TILL THE CORNER THREAT IS OVER. Header that enters exactly where he left! That bastid has been a calamity from day one. He always make me want to throw off tribalist slurs.
3. That referee will ask God for bread and my Lord will give him agbado wey Tinubu don piss inside to chew. For He is a Just God.
4. Like my guy Dhee Sylvester said on Twitter, Haram, jakujaku football is only sweet when you are winning. Because na the high of that win dey cover up the 99 issues wey full your team. And tonight, of all nights, all the issues came out and refused to be smothered by yet another smash and grab result.
The coach should go.
5. The Ivorians deserved to win. They may not have needed the ref to help them to do it but they deserved to win. More importantly they scored two clear undisputed goals. They showed more hunger, more fight, more cohesion and more urgency. They are better representatives of African football with their performance tonight. Congratulations to them and to their fine warrior of a striker Haller, who beat cancer, beat the angel of death, beat an imminent group stage exit and has now beaten the Super Eagles. Keep winning, King.
6. I have seen enough to be able to boldly say Iwobi will NEVER be anything but an iron condemn player. The quicker we bin the bastid and start looking for proper creative midfielders, the better for our world cup qualifying ambitions.
7. Nigeria Police Force in case you need help opening a fraud case against one boy named Chukwuweze, kindly inbox me. I will take you to the shed where the carpenter was doing apprenticeship before escaping to begin disguising as a footballer.
8. Troost Ekong will need 2 bad beeshes to massage am thoroughly because the poor man’s back would be paining him from carrying this team right from the first game. I feel sad for him but that’s life. Sometimes you come so far, come so close, work so hard, give your all, feel your dreams within reach, and yet…yet…
Good thing he won player of the tournament. Most deserving award ever.
9.I curse the day Jay Jay Okocha opened his detty mouth and declared Iwobi as his nephew. Because ever since then they keep playing him by force, looking for a lion inside monkey body.
10. All in all it is a fantastic tournament. African football has come a long way. Although there’s still work to be done, the promise and potentials are there. I’m happy to have witnessed all of this. The skills and the magic. The ruggedness and the ruthlessness. The shocks and the surprises. The highs and the crushing lows. As my Zulu friend would say, Phila isikhathi eside Afrika 🙌🏿🙌🏿.
