Sports minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung has opined that the Super Eagles lost their last group match to Argentina on Tuesday because the Nigerian team’s coaching crew failed to make substitutions when it mattered most.
In a down-to-earth post-mortem of the 2-1 defeat that sent Nigeria packing from this year’s Mundial in Russia, Dalung reasoned that Eagles’ gaffer, Gernot Rohr was cagey and not decisive in making changes at crucial point of the game.
Dalung stressed that the inability of Rohr to make necessary timely changes that could have helped the Eagles hang on for a draw cost the team a spot in the knockout rounds of the World Cup.
La Albiceleste would have crashed out of the competition had the game ended in a draw, and Dalung insisted that the Nigerian team could have seen out the game without losing.
“We lost the match due to poor technical judgment, which failed to inject necessary changes to compliment the effort of the team that was under last minute pressure,” Dalung tweeted in reply to a post by a players’ agent, Onugbu Andy Okwuise.
In his initial post, Onugbu had also blamed Rohr for the loss, stating: “The players gave a very good account of themselves but one would’ve expected the coach to make a tactical change at that 86th minutes when that free kick was awarded against Nigeria. He would have introduced a defensive back up.”
