Greetings everyone!
I'm unapologetically a big fan of my national team, the Super Eagles even though many have written them off due to poor performance currently, despite the star-studded squad. Every member of the team is highly rated in their various clubs in Europe, and we currently have the best African footballer of the year, Victor Osimhen.
You know how it feels to have this type of squad, and yet, a very low-ranking team can come and beat you. It's painful, and I don't blame the people that are talking trash about the team. However, there's still one truth lying in every heart of a Nigerian, which is:
Yes, a lot of people talk badly against the Super Eagles in public, but whenever it's match time, they'll be secretly hoping for the Super Eagles to win. Hahahaha. It's funny! I know you're in that category.*
About the Cote d'Ivoire vs. Nigeria Match
In the ongoing AFCON 2023 match in Cote d'Ivoire, we (Nigeria) are in Group A, which also has the compulsory host nation Cote d'Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea and Guinea Bissau. As a custom, it's expected that two nations will qualify from this group to the next phases, with the platform for qualification being the best performance.
The first match in the group:
Cote d'Ivoire dealt with Guinea Bissau in the first match with 2 goals to nil, giving them a good ground in the group. Of course, we expected that because they're the host nation.
Nigeria first match;
Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea held it to a 1:1 draw, and they went home with 1 point each. This is how the table looked after the first round of matches:
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Cote d'Ivoire: 3 POINTS
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Equatorial Guinea: 1 POINT
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Nigeria: 1 POINT
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Guinea Bissau: 0 POINT
As you can see above, the host nation, Cote d'Ivoire, just needs one more win to qualify from the group, while Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and Guinea Bissau are in a battle for the remaining slot.
This is the part that actually got us worried because our next match was against Cote d'Ivoire, which was going to be fiery and difficult to win because they're the host nation, and playing against a host nation is more like playing against the whole world...it's almost impossible to win.
ON MATCH DAY</center
The day came, social media was set on fire with a lot of mockeries from other African countries...If we lose, then it's the end for us.
That day, Cote d'Ivoire declared a public holiday, and students in schools were mobilized to fill up the stadium to make it scary for Nigeria to play.
To be honest, I was out of hope. My mind was racing, and I was wishing for a miracle.
The match was scheduled at 6:00 pm, and I made sure I finished all my tasks for the day before setting out to watch the match because the fate of the night was unknown to me.
Match kicked off, Indeed, the multitudes in the stadium were intimidating, and Nigerian supporters in the stadium were nowhere to be found.
The match began, and the adrenaline did not fail to manifest itself. The tension was too much. The first half came to an end with a 0:0 draw. Both sides played well, but the Ivorians were seen more with the ball.
The second half kicked off, and in the 67th minute, a penalty kick was awarded to us after VAR checked thoroughly the foul won by Victor Osimhen.
Do you want to know the outcome?
Our captain, Troost Ekong, banged the ball with anger into the back of the net, and that settled it.
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We won!🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
Congratulations to us!🎉🎉🎉
This is my entry to the sports-saturdays in the freecompliments community.
@luchyl l I dn join oooo! 🤸🤸🤸🤸
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