Own Goals – The Love affair of 2018 FIFA World Cup – Signed and sealed by Etebo.
WWith everyone waiting to see Balkans’ warriors, Croatia developed a very sophisticated performance against Nigeria and which beyond its football kit, did not do too much. Minimum services played by the Africans, meant a resolute victory for Croatia.
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Croatia set the standards very early for a great match, and were never really challenged by Nigeria, which we, actually, expected much more, and hopefully against Iceland and Argentina, things will change and improve, because a bad first 20-25 minutes against Iceland, will dictate the uber bus to the airport sooner rather than later.
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A 7 million euros own-goal by Oghenekaro Etebo is how much Stoke City has paid for the transfer of the Nigerian athlete, the most promising talent of the year, but many other 7 million would be on top of the table, to establish a price of a poor performance at all levels.
Seems like Nigeria is getting used to concede through own goals, just like it happened in the last World Cup.
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Intellectually and emotionally, Nigeria were out of sync, leading to obsolete amateur mistakes, such as the penalty they committed for no apparent reason. The lack of experience in terms of age, does not translate the whole issue at stake, because in similar situations physicality might overthrow the power of the other two aforementioned factors. So, there you go, none was present and to stick to quantitative facts, Nigeria has not created a goal opportunity of their own.
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Mandzukic seemed to be the most active player, but still very inconclusive in the last third. Worse than him, only the whole team of Nigeria, that will need to step up in the upcoming match their performance, in case they want to present a threat to any opposition. Super Eagles expected to extend their time in Russia if they use their talent to overcome experience of opposition.
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Croatia 2-0 Nigeria
(E Oghenekaro ’32 og | L Modric ’71 pen)
