National U-23 Eagles’ Coach, Samson Siasia, has blamed the changes in his team’s line up for the loss to Colombia on Wednesday.Nigeria was beaten 2-0 by Colombia in their last group game of the football event of the on-going Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Siasia brought in five new players to the team, which defeated Japan and Sweden in their first two games of the competition. But on Wednesday, they came unstuck against a desperate Colombia, who made hay with their first two clear chances in the game.
Nigeria dominated the game, but they suffered from poor defending and an attack that could not penetrate the Colombian defence.Speaking during the post match conference, Siasia said: “We are disappointed that we did not win because we wanted a 100 per cent record.
“We talked about the Colombian captain because we know how dangerous he is, but our defenders did not pick him up and we conceded a goal.“Now, we will regroup, work on the errors in defence and midfield because any more error henceforth will send us out of the competition and we don’t want to leave now.”
Siasia lamented the U-23 team’s missed opportunities, saying Nigeria’s dominance in the game should have resulted in victory.“Etebo had two chances to score and he didn’t. Had he scored it would have changed the course of the game. When you bring in new boys that have not scored in the competition, there us the tendency to struggle,” he said.
Also reacting to the defeat, team captain, John Obi Mikel, said the team went for a win, which unfortunately did not happen.“We are professionals and we didn’t take it lightly. Unfortunately, things did not go our way.
“Sometimes it is difficult to motivate yourself when you have already qualified, but we did everything we should do, but it did not work for us.“All we have to do now is fix our problems and wait for our nest opponents.”Nigeria will meet Denmark in the quarterfinal of the football event, as the European team finished second in Group A, while the U-23 Eagles topped Group B.
source: http://guardian.ng/sport/siasia-mikel-blame-changes-for-u-23-eagles-defeat-to-colombia/
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