Good day all,
It is with great agony that I make this post about the international friendly that went down yesterday.
It was a blessed Friday evening with two lovely international friendlies involving pairs of international rivals. One was the Euro friendly between Portugal and Spain but my main focus in this post is that of my country Nigeria. It was against one of our neigbouring countries and great footballing rivals, Cameroun. The match was scheduled to be played at 7:30pm west African time.
Starting line ups
| Nigeria | Cameroun |
|---|---|
| Okoye | Omossola |
| Shehu | Billong |
| Troost-Ekong | Toko Ekambi |
| Awaziem | Ngadeu-Ngadjui |
| Collins | Bangou |
| Ndidi | Bahoken |
| Etebo | Ngamaleu |
| Iwobi | Zambo-Anguissa |
| Simon | C. Fai |
| Iheanacho | Hongla |
| Onuachu | Oum Gwet. |
And so it began.
FIRST HALF:
The game started off a bit balanced with the two teams trying to find their rhythm. Cameroon were first to settle and put some good passes together but didn't have a good end product. Nigeria on the other hand were a bit sluggish but found their feet soon enough.
Nigeria slowly grew into the game and we're beginning to string passes together in the defense and in midfield areas. Although the slight dominance, the super eagles(Nigeria) still couldnt find a way to penetrate the indominable lion's (Cameroon) defense. Our best chance of the half came from a wide free-kick taken by the "senior man",Kelechi Iheanacho which was met by the head of Onuachu and produced a good save from the Cameroonian goalie, Omossola. Apart from that, it was wayward attacking play from both teams until the 37th minute, when the deadlock was broken. It was a goal from recently relegated Fulham midfielder, Andre Zambo-Anguissa. A low but fierce strike into the bottom corner from the edge of the 18 yard box. Nigeria tried to salvage something before the break but to no avail.
HALFTIME SCORE
NIGERIA 0-1 CAMEROON
SECOND HALF:
The second half was a way better watch than the first. Nigeria came out with more attacking intent and tried as hard as they could to put pressure on the ball and we created more chances. But once again, upon the dominance, we still weren't able to click in the final third of the pitch with Iheanacho and Onuachu not making the most of their chances. But the best chance of the half fell to Moses Simon. It was a good attacking move that saw the ball fall to the right-hand side with Iwobi there. Iwobi tried a shot which got deflected and fell to the feet of Simon Moses who was at point blank range to shoot and disgracefully ballooned the ball over the post😭. What a miss it was but the Nigerian technical area still showed their support and did all they could to encourage them to attack more. Cameroon looked shaky in some areas but were still able to fashion out the victory. The match ended with the same scoreline and the two teams left in good spirit.
It was a disappointing match for Nigeria and I hope we do better against the same opponents on Tuesday night. On this note, I would like to say congratulations to Cameroon and good luck to Nigeria on Tuesday. Thank you for reading.
Highlights of the match on YouTube can be found here
Congratulation are in order for Cameroon. Looks like there have been impressive additions to the team.
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Indeed,
And some of their players have played at a very high level
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It was a good match with a bad loss
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Yes but I still have belief for Tuesday's match against the same opponents
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Let’s watch
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