RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: World Cup Diary 3

Can you learn to be more civil and constructive. Your language of presentation has not helped at all.


Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com> wrote:

Ugo, just watching Ghana and Ivory Coast, gave me this intense chill of pleasure that the Eagles could not provoke in their match against Iran. Ghana, although they lost, Ghana played what the late Ernest Okonkwo would call "champagne football." They cleaned the floor with the US team even though they were unable to make it all count in scores. But more tellingly, take a look at the rather solid build of the players. The Ghanaian and Ivorian players look fit, primed, like combustible engines. Nigerians players look like they're suffering from acute malaria! Even Stephen Keshi has these bags in his eyes and a protrusion of the stomach that doesn't speak much about his own fitness!!
 
The game with Algeria, I think in the end, might be Nigeria's saving grace, if we go by tradition. Nigeria doesn't do well when there's nothing at stake. The Eagles soar with a challenge. I think we might see a different match with Bosnia. I think Sola Ameobi added a great spark to the wings. Frankly Moses was not in that game. He was crowded out. He made wrong and ptredictable moves. Emenike was far too busy complaining, and made very little tactical moves that worked. Mikel showed occasional spark, but he had this inscrutable loss of concentration frequently. In good form, Mikel could be deadly, but I suspect that these Eagles, in that match against Algeria, were far too inert, either from lethargy; a terrible lack of inspiration, illness, or worse. They looked infirm on the ball. Osaze brought a bit of creativity, but Musa had poor finishing. He could not penetrate the Iranian defence. These are the days when you looked back with nostalgia for an Adokie Amesiemeka and Odegbami or Nwabueze Nwankwo,  at the wings,
or deadly strikers like Atuegbu or Jay-Jay Okocha, or Finidi George, Uwem Ekarika, Ehilegbu, and so on, and you wonder, where did all that magic go?
 Obi Nwakanma
 

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From: ugo@berkeley.edu
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:09:47 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: World Cup Diary 3
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Pablo, to pick up on an issue you raised -- and, as you will see, NOT to defend this team or how they played: 

Regarding the substitution of Moses with Ameobi: I agree with you and Folu that the team was immobile. I also agree with you that Moses was playing o.k., even though he was not having the best game of his life. 

But Keshi's substitution was a tactical move to tackle a structural imbalance in the Eagles' play against Iran for the first 60 minutes or so that Keshi and some of his players had created. It is Keshi's fault for playing Azeez in an advanced position, like a number 10, whereas he plays as a defensive midfielder in La Liga. Mikel too plays as a defensive midfielder in the Premiership but we have seen him do a more effective job at the number 10 position, so Keshi should have utilized him there and played Azeez behind him, instead of the other way around. It is nonetheless the collective fault of the central midfielders that they failed to support the lone striker when they could have done so.

We started with two wingers in Moses and Musa, a lone striker in Emenike, and three central midfielders in Onazi, Mikel and Azeez. The two wingers (including Moses) both had an o.k. game. The problem is that we had two wingers, who did largely their job by sending crosses to the Iran 18-yard box, and three central wingers who neither supported the lone striker nor create meaningful chances of their own for him. As a result, three or four Iran defenders were nearly always on hand to crowd out Emenike because our midfielders -- particularly, Mikel and Onazi -- chose to be immobile. They were not making themselves available for passes in attacking positions. Even though Germany played as many as three forwards to our one (never mind the Germany forwards are attacking midfielders), you could see how the central midfielders behind them (partic

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