Africa Football Discussion || Current Topic: Worldcup qualifiers - CAF.

[Docnaster]

If South Africa had better penalty takers Nigeria might not have found themselves in the finale of AFCON now.

The truth is that they outplayed Nigeria during the official 90 minutes and if they where serious on winning the match they would have made better use of their chances but they couldn't.

What do you mean by if they were serious about winning? Those fellas gave their best in order to win Nigeria. About outplaying the super eagles in the match, I don't know if that happened in the first half of the game because I didn't watch the first half, I was opportune to join the game in the second half of the game and from what i saw, bro, the Bafana Bafana didn't outplay shit, yeah they played so well and I give that to them but The Super Eagles were an equal match for them.

I think the Super Eagles had more advantage in the game and they played better, this was proven when the Super Eagles scored their first goal, it was to be further proven when Victor scored the second goal, which the referee cancelled and recalled a past offense that he didn't care to look at at first, I did sense a fowl play there but regardless we still conquered. We all know that, if not for that small Ojoro, the Super Eagles would have settled the whole matter without the need of going to a Penalty shootout.

I watched the  CAF African Cup Of Nations game between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Bafana Bafana of South Africa from the first minute of the game till the last kick of the game and I can authoritatively say that it was and end to end performance and can't even say which team that's better between the two teams on the pitch yesterday.

The Nigeria team won and progressed to the final of the tournament but  anyone who saw the performance South Africa in that game I think will agree with me that the South African team could have also win that game and had their player scored the rebound of the free kick that was played in the dying minutes of normal time, South Africa would've stopped their Nigeria counterparts from reaching the final

[SatoPrincess]

South Africa off course played a beautiful game in the first half and kept good ball possession to control the game, Nigeria although did come in well into the second half but failed to defend that one goal until the final whistle blew.

South Africa were playing long balls, knowing we don’t have a good midfield, that was why the first half was difficult for the Nigerian players. I was happy the coach saw the problem and substituted Alex Iwobi for Yusuf, even though Yusuf cost us a penalty. His impact on the game was obvious. Nwabali stole the show, the whole country is singing his praises but the man of the match for me is Ekong. If he did not stop that player on the run, we may have conceded a last minute goal.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

I watched the  CAF African Cup Of Nations game between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Bafana Bafana of South Africa from the first minute of the game till the last kick of the game and I can authoritatively say that it was and end to end performance and can't even say which team that's better between the two teams on the pitch yesterday.

The Nigeria team won and progressed to the final of the tournament but  anyone who saw the performance South Africa in that game I think will agree with me that the South African team could have also win that game and had their player scored the rebound of the free kick that was played in the dying minutes of normal time, South Africa would've stopped their Nigeria counterparts from reaching the final

Both teams played really well, I could confidently tell that these are stronger games than the final itself,  every team struggled to earn a spot in the final rounds. Honestly, South Africa had more possibilities of winning that match. I was shaken to my bones during that final minutes free kick rebound which went over the  cross bar.

The first half was clearly dominated by south African players, the second half was issorite dominated by Nigeria and south African players had more shots on target and more chances of giving goals, but the super eagles have their exceptional goal keeper and their rock hard defense to thank for the day.

South Africa on the other hand initiated a delay strategy during the final minutes of the add time in favor of the games proceeding to penalties, they thought there will be a repeat of their last shootout which their keeper was the hero, little did they know the reverse was going to be the case. I congratulate them for trying and Nigerian team for winning.

[Gormicsta]

If South Africa had better penalty takers Nigeria might not have found themselves in the finale of AFCON now.

The truth is that they outplayed Nigeria during the official 90 minutes and if they where serious on winning the match they would have made better use of their chances but they couldn't.

What do you mean by if they were serious about winning? Those fellas gave their best in order to win Nigeria. About outplaying the super eagles in the match, I don't know if that happened in the first half of the game because I didn't watch the first half, I was opportune to join the game in the second half of the game and from what i saw, bro, the Bafana Bafana didn't outplay shit, yeah they played so well and I give that to them but The Super Eagles were an equal match for them.

I think the Super Eagles had more advantage in the game and they played better, this was proven when the Super Eagles scored their first goal, it was to be further proven when Victor scored the second goal, which the referee cancelled and recalled a past offense that he didn't care to look at at first, I did sense a fowl play there but regardless we still conquered. We all know that, if not for that small Ojoro, the Super Eagles would have settled the whole matter without the need of going to a Penalty shootout.

I watched the  CAF African Cup Of Nations game between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Bafana Bafana of South Africa from the first minute of the game till the last kick of the game and I can authoritatively say that it was and end to end performance and can't even say which team that's better between the two teams on the pitch yesterday.

The Nigeria team won and progressed to the final of the tournament but  anyone who saw the performance South Africa in that game I think will agree with me that the South African team could have also win that game and had their player scored the rebound of the free kick that was played in the dying minutes of normal time, South Africa would've stopped their Nigeria counterparts from reaching the final

Agreeably, The Bafana Bafana of South Africa played tremendously well and like I said, I give that to them,  and like I said, I didn't watch the first half, but from what I saw on the second half, especially after the first goal by the Super Eagles, the Bafana Bafana were working tooth nails to make sure they stop the Super Eagles and if not for the penalty they were awarded, which up till now, I still frown against the decision of the referee. If not for that penalty, you can agree with me that the game would have certainly ended in 2:0 in favor of the Super Eagles, and thereby saved everyone the tension of proceeding to a Penalty shootout. Now tell me, if that were to be the case which would have certainly been, would you still say that the game was an end to end performance? Because if you say so then you'd be saying indirectly that the 2 goals conceived in the match were both a product of luck. You're only saying this confidently simply because the game ended in a draw and they proceeded to a Penalty shootout.

[Pokapoka124]

The game yesterday came with a lot of tension. Victor Osimhen was a machine last night and though he missed three headers yesterday, he did a great job pressuring the South African defense. I think the coach took him out too early. I think Poseiro should have waited until the last ten minutes of the match. Without Osimhen, we wouldn’t have been that bullish as we were in the attack. It was really scary match for many Nigerians. Some people could not bear to watch the penalties and waited till after the end of the game to find out the results. I don’t think I have ever seen Nigerians so happy.

[Obari]

The game yesterday came with a lot of tension. Victor Osimhen was a machine last night and though he missed three headers yesterday, he did a great job pressuring the South African defense. I think the coach took him out too early. I think Poseiro should have waited until the last ten minutes of the match. Without Osimhen, we wouldn’t have been that bullish as we were in the attack. It was really scary match for many Nigerians. Some people could not bear to watch the penalties and waited till after the end of the game to find out the results. I don’t think I have ever seen Nigerians so happy.

Nigerians are lucky to be able to win South Africa last night.They didn't play anything so much because the South Africans dominated the match especially in the first half of the game.Victor Osimhen is a good player but I don't really fancy his playing pattern,in as much as I love his aggressiveness,I love attackers that are clinical.He missed about three headers which a good striker will cheaply score.Iheanacho will not miss those headers he missed.Thank God they were lucky enough to have qualified,but to me,the South Africans deserve to win than Nigeria.The final is on Sunday,and they will be playing against Ivory coast.Lets see who will win among the two teams.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

I watched the  CAF African Cup Of Nations game between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and the Bafana Bafana of South Africa from the first minute of the game till the last kick of the game and I can authoritatively say that it was and end to end performance and can't even say which team that's better between the two teams on the pitch yesterday.

The Nigeria team won and progressed to the final of the tournament but  anyone who saw the performance South Africa in that game I think will agree with me that the South African team could have also win that game and had their player scored the rebound of the free kick that was played in the dying minutes of normal time, South Africa would've stopped their Nigeria counterparts from reaching the final

Nigerian Super Eagle narrowly escape the yesterday match with South Africa, they both manage to end their fulltime on draw before the penalty kicks which the Nigerian super eagle keeper safe two against South Africa as the lost the match.

One thing i will like to encourage on players is for them to always get prepared for the worse in any match and they should build themselves also against penalty kicks, some players are not just good on that, it was obvious on South Africans players as their weakness

[Dzwaafu11]

If South Africa had better penalty takers Nigeria might not have found themselves in the finale of AFCON now.

I must admit that I really appreciated Jose Peseiro's actions on substitutions in this match. Because Iheanacho, Moffi and Omeruo all was subbed in during extra time. All of them scored their penalties after that.    I should also add South Africa became this competitive thanks to Mokoena's last minute goal. But he was the one who missed the first penalty of his team at the same time which must be really devastating for him.  

What makes you think that South Africa players are not good in  playing penalty? Those guys are really good. The only thing I noticed from them is that they really trust their goalkeeper, so what they want is that the game should not end that way, and that is why they were wasting our time during the extra time, so they were waiting for the penalty to score and kick the Sper Eagles out, but things turned out sideways for them. However, the Super Eagles were not even expecting the penalty; all they wanted was to win the game while still playing but is wasn't as expected it this way, but South Africa later equalized the goal scored by the Super Eagles.

[Onyeeze]

South Africa off course played a beautiful game in the first half and kept good ball possession to control the game, Nigeria although did come in well into the second half but failed to defend that one goal until the final whistle blew.

South Africa were playing long balls, knowing we don’t have a good midfield, that was why the first half was difficult for the Nigerian players. I was happy the coach saw the problem and substituted Alex Iwobi for Yusuf, even though Yusuf cost us a penalty. His impact on the game was obvious. Nwabali stole the show, the whole country is singing his praises but the man of the match for me is Ekong. If he did not stop that player on the run, we may have conceded a last minute goal.

The only the is that the God's of soccer is with nigeria because from the first half nigeria could not perform the way people expected them, but the grace and wining have already signed by them from above human imagination and that is why the victory have to go to nigeria instead of South Africa, secondly south Africa team was reliable to their goal keeper and they delayed a ball hoping that they will defeat nigeria through a penalty kick because of the performance of their keeper during their last match, that is why they delayed the match and continued pushing it be penalty so that they can easily defeat nigeria..but the luck of football run against them and give nigeria Vic

[Franctoshi]

The South African team were good enough and that made the game become so tough for the super eagle to win, and coupled with the fact that Victor Osimhen was disallowed, and this made the players became a bit demoralized to continue playing because it was few minutes away from the 90th minutes time to finish.

Now two same group stage team contenders happened to be meeting in the final game, where the Super eagle team has more upper hand to lift this trophy because they won Ivory Coast during their group stage game.

[EL MOHA]

Nigerian Super Eagle narrowly escape the yesterday match with South Africa, they both manage to end their fulltime on draw before the penalty kicks which the Nigerian super eagle keeper safe two against South Africa as the lost the match.

One thing i will like to encourage on players is for them to always get prepared for the worse in any match and they should build themselves also against penalty kicks, some players are not just good on that, it was obvious on South Africans players as their weakness

The match was a very interesting one right from the start. The two countries wanted to progress and they actually did very well. The Nigerian team was actually outplayed in the first half of the game when the bafana bafana’s goal here trying to hit on counter and played long balls to Pacey Tau who actually caused us little problems yesterday. Towards the extra time it was obvious that they wanted a penalty which to me wasn’t the right thing we should have given them yesterday. We had two chances to kill the game off, one was presented to Lookman i the regular time and the other to Moffi in the extra time, both should have converted there chances

As for taking of penalties, there are specialties and those players that easily get driven by emotions. Yesterday takers were good but prolonging it to after the first five takers would have put pressure on those left to play which is actually not good. I hope we can kill the game off before penalties in the final.

[GiftedMAN]

South Africa off course played a beautiful game in the first half and kept good ball possession to control the game, Nigeria although did come in well into the second half but failed to defend that one goal until the final whistle blew.

South Africa were playing long balls, knowing we don’t have a good midfield, that was why the first half was difficult for the Nigerian players. I was happy the coach saw the problem and substituted Alex Iwobi for Yusuf, even though Yusuf cost us a penalty. His impact on the game was obvious. Nwabali stole the show, the whole country is singing his praises but the man of the match for me is Ekong. If he did not stop that player on the run, we may have conceded a last minute goal.

The only the is that the God's of soccer is with nigeria because from the first half nigeria could not perform the way people expected them, but the grace and wining have already signed by them from above human imagination and that is why the victory have to go to nigeria instead of South Africa, secondly south Africa team was reliable to their goal keeper and they delayed a ball hoping that they will defeat nigeria through a penalty kick because of the performance of their keeper during their last match, that is why they delayed the match and continued pushing it be penalty so that they can easily defeat nigeria..but the luck of football run against them and give nigeria Vic

@ Onyeeze you mean the god of soccer? very funny, truth be told the SA boys performed more better than the super eagles team all through the game that's because they took over the midfield from us and they had control of the left and right flank which was a little difficult for other teams to do because of the presence of Zaidu in the Nigerian team. Secondly I think the SA team wasted a lot of beautiful chances that they ought to have converted to goals especially their number 10 man Percy Tau who had so many opportunities to score but failed to utilize his chances both in the first half and second half of the game. For the penalty kick, I think they were over confident enough to rely on their goal keeper since he's the first goal keeper so far to save 4 straight penalties in the history of AFCON so they believed he would do the magic but instead of him doing the magic the Nigerian goal keeper Stanley Nwabali became the hero of the night as he was able to stop two penalties that eventually gave Nigera the win.

[Issa56]

Both teams played really well, I could confidently tell that these are stronger games than the final itself

All the African Cup of Nations matches that I watched this year, I haven’t seen the one that was more interesting than Nigeria vs. South Africa. The two countries had equal chances of winning the match, and they played well. I never expected Nigeria to win the penalty, since South Africa goalkeepers is really good at penalties. So when the extra time ended and they were about to go into penalty, I thought South Africa might end up winning, but the Super Eagles goalkeeper really tried in their match yesterday, he was the one that saved the Super Eagles from losing their match.

The first half was clearly dominated by south African players

When the first half of the match ended, and South Africa couldn’t score, I was expecting South Africa to score in the second half of the match because their performance was just better than the Super Eagles in the first half of the match, they really dominated the match, but when the second half started, there was a great improvement in the Super Eagles performance, they did everything possible to win the match, but they finally won even though it wasn’t easy for them.

[Smartvirus]

The South African team were good enough and that made the game become so tough for the super eagle to win, and coupled with the fact that Victor Osimhen was disallowed, and this made the players became a bit demoralized to continue playing because it was few minutes away from the 90th minutes time to finish.

Now two same group stage team contenders happened to be meeting in the final game, where the Super eagle team has more upper hand to lift this trophy because they won Ivory Coast during their group stage game.

South Africa played good football, they had several terrifying through ball and their speed always kept them ahead of to get the ball but surprisingly, they didn’t get to utilize any of them and finished. Thanks to the Nigerian defense which were just good at their job. After South Africa got their equalizer, they came at Nigeria in such a way that, they could have ended the game before the final whistle but, Nigeria managed it.
I think they lost it with the lots of confidence they had in themselves for the penalty. They were just concentrated on holding the game to a shootout because of the confidence in their goalkeeper Williams but, that little underestimation on the super eagles is what proved to be there downfall.
It’s Nigeria in the finals and they’ve got the third place to play for. Still good for them, perhaps they could win Congo.

[Wiwo]

South Africa off course played a beautiful game in the first half and kept good ball possession to control the game, Nigeria although did come in well into the second half but failed to defend that one goal until the final whistle blew.

South Africa was playing long balls, knowing we didn’t have a good midfield, that was why the first half was difficult for the Nigerian players. I was happy the coach saw the problem and substituted Alex Iwobi for Yusuf, even though Yusuf cost us a penalty. His impact on the game was obvious. Nwabali stole the show, the whole country is singing his praises but the man of the match for me is Ekong. If he did not stop that player on the run, we may have conceded a last-minute goal.

Well in general Nigeria team played much better football last night and at that we saw what the percentage of ball positions was and what average the score was,  the fact is that we had a lot of luck on outside in the last night's game and not that the coach was very smart enough with his accurate changes and in the last minutes which brought onboard the best players to play the penalty in the match.

Which subsequently led us to becoming the winner of the match, this was a collaborative effort of all the players and even though the Nigeria goalkeeper is the most praised in the country today because of his tactical ball keeping which ultimately led us to win the match,  I wish the team better luck in the coming match on Sunday which is the ground the final day of the league.

[adultcrypto]

This should be one of the best AFCON I have ever seen, filled with so much emotions, surprises and beautiful football. The uniqueness of this years' AFCON is so much that it was practically impossible to predict, so I'm sure the bookies made some nice profits from it. Take for instance, everyone was expecting Egypt, Senegal and Morocco to be among the winners, people easily bet on them in their various matches, unfortunately, this tournament was different.

Another thing that added so much fun to this tournament is the Twitter (X) fights between the countries. Anyone following this competition but no on X will never know the fun going on there. Truly we have never seen AFCON with so much social creativity like this, from the memes, skirts, comedy and rivalries that followed Nigeria vs Cameroon and Nigeria vs South Africa, one could confirm the level of interest in this tournament.

It is as if the final of the tournament have been played yesterday because the match between Nigeria and South Africa is nothing short of a final.

[Iroh]

If South Africa had better penalty takers Nigeria might not have found themselves in the finale of AFCON now.

South Africa had some great players who probably were also good at scoring at penalty kicks. I don’t think it was about having better players to take penalties as the outcome of penalties is anyone’s guess. Also, penalties are more about the ability of the goalie than of the player taking the shot.
Taking a cue from the game with Cape Verde, South Africa’s goalie was probably seen as a penalty stopper and the favorite going into the penalty shootout.
I did think for a moment that Nigeria would lose if the game went into penalties. I also remembered that in football, the outcome isn’t always as majorly expected.

[Obim34]

If South Africa had better penalty takers Nigeria might not have found themselves in the finale of AFCON now.

South Africa had some great players who probably were also good at scoring at penalty kicks. I don’t think it was about having better players to take penalties as the outcome of penalties is anyone’s guess. Also, penalties are more about the ability of the goalie than of the player taking the shot.
Taking a cue from the game with Cape Verde, South Africa’s goalie was probably seen as a penalty stopper and the favorite going into the penalty shootout.
I did think for a moment that Nigeria would lose if the game went into penalties. I also remembered that in football, the outcome isn’t always as majorly expected.

I Would say concerning penalties it also goes beyond the keepers ability, I believe it is always more of the penalty takers. The South Africans players in my own are not that good in penalty taking they were only dependent and survived the tournament from the help of the goalkeeper.

[Marvelockg]

The game yesterday came with a lot of tension. Victor Osimhen was a machine last night and though he missed three headers yesterday, he did a great job pressuring the South African defense. I think the coach took him out too early. I think Poseiro should have waited until the last ten minutes of the match. Without Osimhen, we wouldn’t have been that bullish as we were in the attack. It was really scary match for many Nigerians. Some people could not bear to watch the penalties and waited till after the end of the game to find out the results. I don’t think I have ever seen Nigerians so happy.

it was a great match indeed, the tension was just too much for me after they counseled the second goal and recalled the foul that brought about the penalty that led to the equalizer. The two teams gave their fair fight in the match and I didn't expect anything less from both teams as they are obvious rivals and all wanted to get to the finals by every means possible.

I don't think the coach did anything wrong by substituting osimehn at the time he did the substitute. From what I have seen so far, the catch is a tactical man that knows what he is doing and the changes he made where very instrumental in the win we had against the bafana bafana of south Africa.

The deed is done and what lies ahead is the big game against the host nation which would be a slightly tough nut to crack considering the fact that they have the home advantage plus the crowd that will give them the needed support. But like an analyst pointed out this morning, if the supper eagles go into the game with the whole of their mind, it would be a very easy game for then because the Ivorian team will be distracted by the so many crowd that will cheer them up and that could be a serious advantage for the Nigerian side.

The cup is coming back to the giant nation.

[Zigabel]

South Africa were playing long balls, knowing we don’t have a good midfield, that was why the first half was difficult for the Nigerian players. I was happy the coach saw the problem and substituted Alex Iwobi for Yusuf, even though Yusuf cost us a penalty. His impact on the game was obvious. Nwabali stole the show, the whole country is singing his praises but the man of the match for me is Ekong. If he did not stop that player on the run, we may have conceded a last minute goal.

This is something I actually didn't pay much attention to and I can dispute your keen observation as it's very much valid, ekong was of a great help to Nigeria in that game, from scoring the penalty that gave Nigeria the only goal to still scoring after the Nigerian players missed one of the penalty kicks which boasted the confidence of the team to score even after loosing one of the kicks, enkong really deserves some accolades because not only did he perform well as a player but as a captain which I must say he did greatly and I applaud him.

Yusuf and nwabali also did so well too and also deserves some accolades aswell, I'm hoping to see them win the AFCON because they have gone too far to not win the competition, they have also performed well too so it's very commendable I hope they get crowned as the champions for all their efforts so far.