Tough luck for Nigeria this tournament. Mikel's injury. The moment of madness in the Greece game. And all the close calls tonight. Uche hitting the post when up 1-0, Yakubu missing the sitter before the PK, and Martins' late chance. Still, a brave fight and good spirit. Wonderful game, really.
For me, as a Korean I'm actually ashamed to say this but I feel that this is one of the worst "winning" matches I've ever seen, so awful that this should be deemed as a "loss" rather than a "win". Shameful defense [only Cha Duri, Lee Young Pyo did the job done], poor ball trapping and handling, abysmal passes, hesitant in offense, and worst of all, inaccurate shots! What happened to our team when they had a knack against Greece? If Argies won 1-0 against Nigeria and 2-1 in favor for Greece, how could they tie with Nigeria like this?!!? SK's legitimacy of football skill is now being questionable. I have earlier predicted that SK would win 2-0 or by a greater difference. That surely assured that they would do well against Uruguay. Instead they still are being carried away by the victory over Greece and still feeling the aftershock defeat to Argentinians! Now how are they gonna do well against Forlan-Suarez-Caceres combo? Condolences to Nigerian squad, but neither of them brought the fullest of their potentials in this field. Just a rascal match between two of the subpar teams.
Congratulation to the SK team, you made us Asian all proud Those last minutes were crazy, I could feel my heart pump like hell Because it's a play-off game
Great game, Nigeria gave their all but just fell short, I still don't understand why Obafemi Martins was on the bench the entire tournament wtf. South Korea looked to have a genuine star on their hands in the form of Park Chu-Young this guy is awesome, good luck in the knockout round!
After Park Chu-young made it 2-1, we kinda seemed to lose composure and focus. We made ill-advised passes after ill-advised passes and did reasonably poor job of covering spaces when Nigeria countered. Kim Nam-il's stupidity inside the box could have cost our advancement. Nigeria got back into the game after that. Korea Republic still don't know how to finish off the opponents and that's why we are not a top-tier team yet. Tough luck for Nigeria. They had to overcome missing Mikel, Taiwo, and Kaita but fought very well until the end. Congratulations to our players, coaches, and staffs as well. They accomplished their goal under enormous pressure.
I would say "fit" would better discribe them... Fitness, team play and commitment was why they could beat a superior team like this. As for Yakubu's miss...I think he was overcompensating. He wanted to make sure not to fluff or scuff the ball and make proper contact. This made his foot to be at too much of a closed angle...It takes a man of character to slot away a penalty like that after a miss like that. My only gripe with Yakubu may be fitness/speed. Fitness will = more concentration
nigerans gota stop complaint on Yak's miss. i saw replay he's offside. plus u got that goal bak anyway thanx Kim Nam Il bonehed tackle in box
I think he was just about even with the ball when it was played to him and the linesman didn't raise the flag. If he had scored, I"m sure the goal would have been given.
I can't believe we didn't score. We hit the bar, we missed a sitter, Oba's chance was as good as they get, there were two shots that were less than a foot wide that their gk had no chance of saving etc etc... Good job by Korea. I knew they were going to come back as soon as I saw Nigeria becoming complacent again at the beginning of 2nd half. Nigeria seem to only play well when they have to. Otherwise they just sit back and become lazy. It was nice seeing Kanu play again. He still has that magic touch. Good luck against Uruguay, Korea.
Head ref called it offsides but why do you keep on saying "even with the ball"? He needed to have been even with the last Korean defender not the ball.
Agree. I'm really surprised to see how much SK has improved in term of fitness. Keep going like this and they will achieve amazing things.
I was so happy to see him back on the pitch one last time, and they looked better with him out there. A bit more inspired. It's just too bad that they couldn't be more clinical to go with that.
If the ball is ahead of you, you don't need to be even with the second to last Korean player. I am almost positive if you're even with the ball, you don't need to be even with the second to last player either.