Friday 21 June 2013

Nigeria 1-2 Uruguay: The Super Eagles downed by Centurion Forlan

If there was any chance that the Super Eagles might make it to the semifinals of the 2013 Confederations Cup, they must take at least a point against Uruguay to do that. After yesterdays defeat the destiny of the Super Eagles in this competition is definitely out of their hands.
The match kicked off with Uruguay looking the brighter of the two sides launching waves of attack on the Nigerian defense.
Although the Super Eagles to settled down, with Ahmed Musa in particular causing problems for the Uruguayan Center backs with his mazy runs down the left hand channel. It was Uruguay who broke the dead lock when Diego Forlan found Lugano with a ball fizzed across the Nigerian box. The defender kept his composure and found the back of the net with ease.
There were very few chances for either sides after that goal with Ideye being denied by a last ditch tackle by Perreira after He has been found by a lofted pass in to the box.
A nice move saw Nigeria equalize with 37 minutes on the clock, Ideye fed Mikel just outside the 18 yard box, He took the ball to his weaker left foot beating Lugano in the process and curled a delicious finish in to the top corner.
The Super Eagles began the second half with more intent but it was the South American champions who took the lead.
Mikel lost the ball to Suarez, who then passed it to Cavani. Cavani laid the ball to Forlan who fired a first time shot in to the top corner leaving Enyeama helpless.
From then all the Uruguayans did was to protect their lead and the Eagles had most of the possession for the last 20 minutes but couldn't do much with it. They lacked fire power upfront.
It was Uruguay who had chances to further extend their but Cavani was wasteful on two occasions.
The match  ended in favour of the South American champions moving them to second in the group behind World champions Spain. While the Nigerians have an outside chance of qualifying to the semifinal.
Vincent Enyaema had this to say after the defeat.

"It's like Rome, that wasn't built in a day. We have good players and we are trying to achieve good things. [Captaining the side] is amazing. A great feeling. There is no better thing to be in history,"
"Nobody would have believed that we would play this well. The bookmakers never gave us a chance. We forced Uruguay to defend all of the game.
"We are on the same page as Uruguay. We have three points, they have three points. They have a more easy game, and we have Spain, but nobody knows what can happen. Maybe we can do it."


We had more possession but apart from the goal by Mikel we didn't create clear cut chances. We shouldn't be talking about the match as if we just lost the final against Spain Tahiti, after having 100% possession and 50 shots on target.
Hope the boys get a result against Spain.

 
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