My AFCON Moments, why Nigeria lost the Final – Osasu Obayiuwana

Who are your standout performers in Cote d’Ivoire tournament?

William Troost-Ekong. He was selected as the Player of the Tournament and that was richly deserved. Again, I will talk about Emilio Nsue of Equatorial Guinea who scored five goals and emerged top score of the tournament. I will also give a lot of credence to Victor Osimhen even though he didn’t score as many goals as we expected him to score. His menace and threat were present throughout the tournament, and the only reason why he didn’t score more goals was because Nigeria didn’t have an effective midfielder. Sebastien Haller of the Ivory Coast; because when you consider that a couple of years ago, cancer could have totally ended his career but he’s back and helped Ivory Coast lift the AFCON trophy, scoring the final goal. So, I think these players really impressed me.

What’re your views about the overall organization, which has been praised as one of the best AFCON editions in recent times?

Although the football was great, the organization was not. Ticketing was not properly managed. We had so many games where we were told they were sold out. But when you go to the stadium, there were so many huge gaps in the stadium, even for the semi-final between Nigeria and South Africa. There were thousands of seats unoccupied and yet they said that the tickets were sold out.  So, there was a huge problem there and I don’t know why this so. Well, maybe I do know a little bit, because most of the sales were done on the Internet, most people couldn’t find tickets on the Internet. And rather than also have the alternative of them being able to buy it from the kiosks and shops, they didn’t offer that for this AFCON. I think CAF forgot that that majority of purchases on the continent are in person and in cash, not by electronic transfers or bank cards. So, they really need to think about this for the future.

What are your views about the final and why the Ivorians won?

Ivory Coast won the final because they attacked more. When you keep on piling pressure on an opponent for 40, 50, 60 minutes and they don’t attack you, they just keep on defending and defending, then the side attacking consistently will eventually get the openings, because defence, no matter how good it is, will faint errors, and that’s what happened. The Nigerian defence had so much pressure piled on it because of the tactics of the coach, that they caved. Sadly, they caved in a way that actually didn’t reflect solidity of the defence, which we saw in the matches prior, so it was unfortunate. I think if the Nigerian team had had a bit more movement upfront to lessen the pressure on the defence, they probably could have won the game and they may not even have conceded any of the two goals.  But that’s not the way it went.

What are your top 4 moments in AFCON, Cote d’Ivoire 2023?

Seeing Cape Verde do so well in the tournament. Seeing that Equatorial Guinea emerged with the top score with the tournament even though they went nowhere near the final, that was really impressive. Seeing Ivory Coast beat Senegal and Mali; those were two incredible games. Nobody expected Ivory Coast to get out of those two games.