SPORTS: Three Nigerian Players Who Flopped At 2014 FIFA World Cup

                 

With the World Cup set to climax today(Sunday) Nigerian fans can only but hope it would have been their team in the final of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

At least it was one of the wishes of the Nigerian government when they approved a whooping sum of money for the campaign of the Super Eagles for the World Cup.

The Sports minister,Tamuno Danagogo didn't mince words when he said that he

hoped the Super Eagles wins the trophy.

Well,those were wishes and for it to have even seen the light of the day,there shouldn't be a margin for a error.

Nigeria crashed out of the World Cup,losing in the second round to France who were tactically better than their African counterpart o the day.

It wasn't totally a woeful performance by Nigeria at the World,if not for anything making the second round was even an achievement ,especially if the last time you made this stage was in 1998.

The thing is that the bars have been raised so high,that more than a second round berth was expected from the Super Eagles team.

A lot of factors contributed to them not getting to that height in Brazil,but this article will dwell more on the players,who if they had pushed themselves a further more the team would have at least gone far.

Last week we dealt on Nigeria's best players at the World Cup. This week,we will be looking at the Nigerian flops at the tournament.

So we are picking out three players who didn't light up Nigeria's campaign at the World Cup tournament.



* John Obi Mikel:
Hardly any disagreement in his pick as Nigeria's worst performer in Brazil,Mikel failed to live up to expectations at the tournament and he represented everything that went wrong for Nigeria.

Seen as the focal point of the Super Eagles,coach Stephen Keshi built his team around Mikel,in fact Nigeria's creativity instincts should have come from him but he flattered to deceive.

The Chelsea player was slow and had lots of misplaced passes attributed to him,he failed to lift his teammates and couldn't inspire any confidence in them.

Many people have been agitating why he was saddled with the roles of a number 10,because on the evidence of what he displayed in Brazil he should be given another number maybe the number 12 that he wears for Chelsea.

Prior to the tournament,it was a consensus that this was his tournament to shine and silence his critics(considering that it is also his first World Cup tournament) not only did Mikel unify people in agreeing on his failure,he also armed them with a leverage on to ventilate their criticisms.

Some people strongly believe that Nigeria got to the stage they got to because they had Ogenyi Onazi masking Mikel's deficiencies,which was blown up immediately the Lazio man got injured and substituted against France.

There are Nations Cup qualifiers to prosecute and if Mikel as much put such mediorce performance,then expect the avalanche of criticisms to increase.




* Victor Moses: 
It was always going to be tough for Victor Moses to replicate his 2013 African Nations Cup showings when he didn't play regular football for his club this past season.

The Chelsea player was on loan at Liverpool for the whole of last season,but the winger played just a handful of games for the Merseyside club,all these combined made for a woeful outing for Nigeria.

Moses,prior to the World Cup was one of the players expected to dazzle and help bring down opposition defences for Nigeria.

Out of the four games Nigeria played in Brazil,he only played in two matches.

Moses was so poor against Iran that he was hurled out after 55minutes in the first game of the tournament.

Reports surfaced that Moses fell out with Keshi,which led to him being dropped for the subsequent games against Bonia and Argentina,although there were other claims that the player was injured.

Whatever reason Keshi had to have dropped Moses,it looked like a good decision because Moses was out of sorts in tournament.
This was not the Moses Nigeria saw at the Nations Cup in South Africa last year,this one was a different version.



* Emmanuel Emenike:
Probably unfair that he has to be included in this team of worst Nigerian performers at the World Cup.

Nigeria's goalscoring burden was pinned on this Fenerbahce striker that when he failed to sparkle,somehow the team suffered.

Emenike did not score a single goal,perhaps if that his goal against France had stood,maybe his fortunes would have changed as well as that of Nigeria.

He did put in a lot of effort,even creating an assist,but then strikers are reckoned with the goals they scored.

Four goals at the 2013 Nations Cup endeared him to the Nigeria fans,he also netted the two away goals against Ethiopia that helped the country make the trip to Brazil.

But it was not to be for Emenike in Brazil,as he payed all four matches failing to score a goal.

Nigeria out of the four matches played could only score three goals,a meager returns in attack.

If Emenike had contributed with his goals,maybe they would have gone as far as possible in the tournament.