itsbeautifuloutside

Nigeria v Bosnia-Herzegovina

Cuiaba, 21st June 2014

Match Report

Bosnia & Herzegovina must have been fairly optimistic about this match; having played well against Argentina in their first match, and noting that Nigeria staggered to a draw against Iran in their opener, you can’t blame them for being confident of getting something out of this one.

Iran were being written off by most of the pundits as they had lost to Argentina earlier, and this was seen as the decider for the runners up spot in the group.

Who knows what might have happened on another day, but this one was marred by a controversial refereeing decision. FIFA, since the tournament had begun, had already suspended a Colombian lino, publicly came out in support of a Japanese ref for awarding Brazil’s Fred a dodgy pen (while, no doubt, privately reading him the riot act) and, after this match, had to face a public petition demanding that the referee be sacked and the match rerun. Fat chance of that being done.

Digressing from the match, for a minute, the world is never short of people rushing to judgement on t’interweb thingy, and demanding a public vote on all sorts of matters. I blame too many of these talent shows that short-change the short-brained with premium rate voting lines.

Anyhoo, back to the match. Bosnia started defensively and without guile while Nigeria had woken up after their somnambulent stroll against Iran five days earlier. But Bosnia had Dzeko and, almost single-handedly, he tried to galvanise his team mates. Poor Bosnian play led to an early free kick, then John Obi Mikel went close followed soon after by Begovic saving from Onazi.

But Bosnia started to fight back and, on 20 minutes, they seemed to get their reward when Dzeko drilled home past the goalkeeper. Offside flagged the lino!

It wasn’t, but as B&H’s coach, Safet Susic, said afterwards “... this is not the first or last refereeing mistake...” Minutes later, Nigeria also found the net as Emenike beat Spahic, then crossed for Peter Odemwingie to put the ball past Begovic, his club team mate. That was Nigeria’s first World Cup goal from open play in nine hours!

Poor Bosnia, they really looked as if they’d been hit for six; Dzeko kept plugging away though, Begovic kept them in the game with some smart saves but, despite all the end to end play, nothing more of note happened. Ibisevic came on as a sub and could have (should have?) scored but Nigeria looked happy trying to sit on their lead.

Well done to both goalkeepers; a hearty cheer for Dzeko and don’t be surprised to see Bosnia & Herzegovina do well in future competitions.

stbaz