Nigeria’s Super Eagles, yesterday, brightened their chances of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, with a 3-1 spanking of the Desert Foxes of Algeria.
The encounter took place at the capacity-filled Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo, Akwa Ibom.
Victor Moses was the star of the epic encounter as he displayed why his club coach, Antonio Conte, showed faith in him. He scored twice while team captain, Mikel John Obi, got one. The Algerians had a solitary strike through Nabil Bentaleb.
Coach Gernot Rohr, turned to Chippa United shot stopper, Daniel Akpeyi, in the absence of injured Carl Ikeme, while Oghenekaro Etebo, Moses and Leon Balogun got their first games under the Franco-German.
The Algerians named a strong startlist that included Riyad Mahrez, Islam Slimani, Carl Medjani and Bentaleb in the absence of El Arabi Soudani and other top players.
Seven minutes into the game, Moses did well to dink past his marker and then cut inside another Algerian but just could not apply the appropriate finish by dragging his effort off target.
However, the Chelsea man made no mistake 18 minutes later when he gave his country the lead through an individual piece of play, laced with a little bit of good footwork.
Algeria came closest to drawing level in the 37th minute, but Bentaleb scooped the ball over the post with Nigeria’s defence in disarray.
Slimani came close to scoring too, but Akpeyi was equal to the task.
On the stroke of half time, Mikel doubled Nigeria’s lead after Algeria’s back four played the Chelsea midfielder onside to score past Rais M’bolhi.
It was a different performance from the Fennecs in the business end of the game however, they clawed themselves back by pegging the Super Eagles in their half.
In the 67th minute, Bentaleb fired in a stunner to pull one back for Algeria.
Mahrez also came to life as Brahimi could only watch as his attempt went off target in the 74th minute.
It was Moses that turned up at the death to kill off any kind of fight back from the Algerians, by picking his spot from Ahmed Musa’s cross to give the cxountry a 3-1 win.
Nigeria is now on six points, four more than second-placed Cameroon, while Zambia and Algeria have a point each.
source: http://guardian.ng/sport/moses-is-hero-scores-twice-as-eagles-sink-desert-foxes-3-1/
0 comments:
Post a Comment