Football enthusiasts in Enugu State have attributed the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria 1-2 loss to Burkina Faso, at the ongoing U-17 African Cup of Nation (AFCON) in Algeria to anxiety.
Some of them who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said the players played the game with fear and conceded first.
NAN reports that the Golden Eaglets crashed out of the ongoing U-17 AFCON in Algeria after losing 1-2 in the quarter-final on Thursday night.
Chidera Offor, a female footballer with Greenfoot FC of Enugu, said the players missed good chances in the match as a result of anxiety of coming out second best.
“The boys played well but in football, if you don’t take your changes when you have them forget it because it will come back to hunt you” she said.
“Nigeria started the game on a high which I really like and missing the first three golden chances which was not acceptable in modern football” she added.
“Secondly they kept falling down on the pitch, every player wanted to score and forget to try the goalkeeper with a distance shot,”she said
She blamed the defender for fouling the striker which resulted to the penalty; the defender has closed him down and should have avoided contact with him.
“I must commend the players for reaching this stage; beside they are young and vibrant. So they have bright future with better programme,” Offor said.
Coach Blaise Ude expressed disappointment in the technical crew, saying that they are the ones that let the country down by not been up to their responsibility.
“Imagine your players cannot for ones calm down their nerves in front of the goal post to take a better decision and everybody want to score at the same time.
“When everybody want to score in a match, you find out that nobody succeeds at the end of the day because, football is not an individual sport like boxing,”Ude said.
Udeh who is a boxing coach in the state hailed the players strength, ability and willingness to set things right but lacked the basic technicalities to kill the game.
Nobert Okolie, Rangers Football club media officer, said the team lost to Burkina Faso because they failed to play as a team.
“From the look of things, the golden Eaglets do not have a leader at the defence and lacked the scoring power” she said.
“We conceded the first goal from a loose ball and the second from a misguided tackle, you can see that we are the cause of our downfall,”he said.
