Former Green Eagles left winger, Dr. Felix Owolabi, says the technical ineptitude and the unresponsive nature of the Eagles bench primed the players for Golgotha and made it so easy for a lustreless Croatian side to slaughter them with set pieces.
Like Nigerian soccer legend, Austin Jay Jay Okocha, opined after the dismal opener, Owolabi could not make sense out of the formation Coach Gernot Rohr imposed on the team in the all-important opening game which Nigeria lost 0-2. The result makes Friday’s match against Iceland a must-win for Nigeria.
Recall that since the loss, Rohr has been insisting that there was nothing wrong either with the formation he played against Croatia or the way his boys executed his game plan.
But Owolabi told The Crest, Monday, that the result would have been different had Coach Rohr given the players the right instructions and made appropriate changes at the appropriate time.
“The greatest mistake of the day was the coach changing Iwobi,” Owolabi who holds a PhD in Physical Education (Human Kinetics) said. “That change disorganized the team. All he needed to do was to change Musa Abdullahi and ask Moses to play at the right back so he can overlap to help in the attack.
“Mikel was to be removed a long time ago instead of Iwobi. This however was our undoing. Fixing players at the right position is very important. The coach does not seem to know much about the individual characters of his players.”
Owo Blow, as he was fondly called in his playing days, also lampooned the Eagles saying it lacked cohesion and the midfield was too loose.
“I pray we can change if only the coach would be able to identify his folly,” Owolabi said, concluding on an optimistic note: “It is not over yet”.