By Damola Emmanuel
With a scintillating performance that easily passes as one of the team’s best in recent times, the Super Eagles, Friday night, at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium located in the heart of Abdijan, dispelled the despondency that has enveloped most Nigerians these past months as a result of the harsh economic situation in the country.
They replaced it with a rapture of joy in Cote D’Ivoire with a game that a soccer buff described as the “match of their life”.
Like the true eagle, the national team played a great game, attacking and attacking but missed vital goals that may have turned the match into a huge nightmare and a living hell for Angola.
On a night when the hard-tackling Angolan defence almost took out Nigeria’s tireless goal poacher, Victor Osimhen, it was Ademola Lookman that sent the national soccer team into the semi-final of the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, with his text book goal.
The 41st minute strike by former Fulham and Everton winger Lookman was worth the weight of the round leather in diamond.
Apart from setting football fans walking on air, reveling in rapture of joy, Lookman’s exceptional performance spiked the optimism of Nigerians that the cup is now within reach.
Another classical goal by Victor Osimhen that would have increased the Super Eagles tally to 2-0 was ruled out for offside by VAR.
Angola were also a beauty to watch as they contested the game keenly. In fact, they had better possession of the ball than the Super Eagles, especially during the second stanza of the match. They were never intimidated by the fact that the Nigerian team paraded a surfeit of world-class players. They almost scored in the fourth minute of the cracker but for goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali who caught a close-range effort by Angola’s Mabululu.
Though Osimhen almost increased the tally, the night clearly belonged to Lookman, the Atalanta man, who was a constant threat to the Angolans. Lookman was at the core of everything that the Super Eagles did right on a night they shone like thousand stars.
