Greece v. Nigeria 2-1 17/Jun/10

Second Round, Fourth Game, Group B, Day 7. (19 of 64)


The Greeks overcame one-goal disadvantage.
[Photo: Reuters via Telegraph]


Although matematically speaking the Nigerians still have certain chance of going through the next stage, their hopes seem well and buried, most probably because of their torrid way of playing. Today in the Free State Stadium we witnessed an entertaining game that only saw some amusing parts in Kaita's red card.

Despite the terrific perfomance in the first minutes from the Africans, the former EURO champions managed to beat their opposition and took advantage of their defensive frailties after the sent off. It seemed as if the building that the Nigerians raised with effort, after scoring in the 16th minute, little by little fell apart with each storie encountering a terrible faith in the fall.



Uche scores the first.
[Photo: Reuters via Daily Mail]


The game started quite positively for Lagerback's team since Obi Mikel took advantage of a free kick that was derived from a yellow card challenge on Papastathopoulos. It was the fifteen minute and Uche deviated the ball to have the lead. The nervy defending was of course a great part of the advantage. The Greeks took with philosphy the booking and were expectant in their own half. The captain Karagounis, always eager to get a shot from long range, took an opportunity and smashed it against the head of Yobo. What followed was a Pepe-esque style of mental rambling in the part of Kaita -he got the red card due to a stamp.

With nearly an hour to go, the Africans would have to work in the ten-men figure. Then on, it took some time for the Greeks to accomodate themselves as they hit twice in the last minutes of the first half. Samaras tried to flicked a rebound in the box -the effort was marvelously cleared off the line by Haruna. Salpingidis found the late equaliser when a fierce shot found Haruna's foot and went in.


In the opening minutes of the next half Tzorvas made an outstanding effort to prevent the second goal from the Nigerians when he palmed away an Uche cross in the 46th minute. Then the Greeks comenced their slow attack. One conclusion of that was that Gekas failed to poke the ball, in the 59th minute; what followed was a speedy counter which ended in the uneffective and misfiring feet of Yakubu.

Ten minutes after, Enyema saved again another chance to keep his teams' hopes alive. Unfortunately for the Nigerians Enyema's luck ran out when he made a mistake and Torosidis took the lead again in the 77th. Yakubu had a coupole of chances, none which were fully converted. Karagounis again took another shot and the story for Eneyema repeated itself. With ten minutes to go the costly mistake saw the poor African team going out of the World Cup too soon.