Nigeria Under-20 coach, Manu Garba was left ruing the impact of two costly mistake on the outcome of his side’s opening Group E match against Brazil at the World Youth Championship in New Zealand.
The Flying Eagles suffered a 2-4 defeat by a Judivan inspired Brazil in New Plymouth on Monday morning.
Despite pulling ahead for a 2-1 lead through a swift breakaway move that ended with a clinical finish by Musa Yahaya on 28 minutes, Nigeria- in no time as they had equalised Gabriel Jesus’ opener- handed back initiative to the South Americans as Judivan netted to level scores 2-2 at the break.
“It’s a huge disappointment,” Manu is quoted as saying on Fifa.com. “We carved out the better chances in the first half and we should have led at the break.”
The five-time champions returned after the interval to put the game to bed, with Boschilia’s shot from a distance crashing in off the inside of the post beyond goalkeeper Joshua Enaholo, who then let the ball toss and turn through his leg for Judivan to complete his brace.
Manu said: “The first 45 minutes reflected what we’re capable of. We simply made two mistakes that cost us dearly in the second period. All in all we played our part in a really great match and I’d like to congratulate Brazil on their victory; they’re a very good team.”
Brazil coach Rogerio Micale said: “We had expected to face a really good side in Nigeria and we weren’t mistaken on that front. We started very well, but then the opposition gradually got on top and prevented us from playing our game. We shored things up in the middle of the park again in the second half and then looked to exploit the wings, which paid dividends.”
Nigeria next face Korea DPR on Thursday morning (5AM Nigerian time).
Flying Eagles learnt it a hard way to always take their chances,we cld have rounded off d game under d 1st 35mins.so unfortunate, not a bad game all d game.but d team psychologist needs to work on d defence line.