On Saturday night, Nigeria have done what they needed to and comprehensively defeated Libya 4:0 in front of their home crowd in Uyo. With this win, they’ve moved up to second place in the standings in Group E and are in great position to qualify for the African Cup of Nations next year.
Odion Ighalo won the Man of the Match award after scoring his first hat-trick for the Super Eagles. Coach Gernot Rohr has once again reiterated the quality of the player and said that it wasn’t fair for some of the fans to treat him as anything less than that. In the end, both the coach and the player were vindicated. Absentee captain John Obi Mikel also had nothing but praise for his younger teammate after the game.
Some of the players, namely Leon Balogun, were impressed by the way Alex Iwobi played and have named him the Crown Prince of the Super Eagles. Iwobi played just behind Ighalo and he even provided a great pass through to middle for Ighalo’s second goal.
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The Coach had a few words to say about his interim captain Ahmed Musa, who has now led the team for two games in a row, the first one against Seychelles. He has taken the role the injured John Obi Mikel normally has and he’s taken it with both arms. In an interview after the game, Rohr said that he had found a new captain, who leads the team in a different way. He is confident that Musa will be able to lead his team to another victory on Tuesday.
Most of the players were active on the social media after the game, and the one thing that they all agree on is that the team spirit was great within the squad.
Shehu Abdullahi has spoken about his injury. He had to be substituted in the first half and he said that he is unlikely to recover for the second game against Libya on Tuesday but knows that the team will perform well.
Even though everyone is ecstatic about the win, they know that it will be a much harder game away from home especially as Libya now has to win and will certainly approach the game differently. The match is scheduled on Tuesday and the Super Eagles will go there to get a back to back win, but even a point would keep them in 2nd place and two points in front of the Libyans and a chance to go top of the table if they beat South Africa in November.