Nigeria V Iran World Cup 2014

Nigeria V Iran Fifa World Cup 2014

After match synopsis in red!!

Lets get some winning bets

Pregame bets:

Nigeria to score a peno 7/1
Race to 5 corners 6/5 Nigeria (great bet imho)
Nigeria to score in both halves 9/4
Nigeria -3 is 14/1
Nigeria to win and both teams not to score 15/8

Another African team that couldn’t be bothered to play as a team. Must learn not to take African teams so seriously, slap on wrist. Bad tipping, but at least the best tip came up, race to 5 corners, phew.

Full betting review here>http://thisdrinkinglife.com/top-bets-world-cup/

Beers: Group F of Beer World Cup: http://thisdrinkinglife.com/world-cup-beer-group-f/

Who is set to win the battle of the beers? ? V ? Unfortunately I couldn’t source any beer from either Iran or Nigeria so this will be a dour draw. But at least it gives me time to have a nice pizza.

And I leave you with the words of Frank Zappa

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline — it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

Twas a lovely pizza alright, and a good break from all the beer I have guzzled the last few days. Crikey I def need to detox after the world cup.

PreGame:

Nigeria: On paper the squad looks a bit light, but it’s a squad that has years of experience in the big leagues across Europe. Shola Ameobi has starred regularly for Newcastle in the EPL, Ogenyi Onazi at 21 is an emerging talent with Lazio and Uwa Elderson Echiéjilé has had a decent year with Monaco in Ligue 1.

John Obi Mikel, of Chelsea, for me is the heart of this team. If he can get the ball moving along and the strikers supplied, then Nigeria have a real chance of making the second round.

Another player I will be keeping on eye out is Celtic’s Efe Ambrose. He goes about his game very quietly, but is very effective in what he does. He is very solid at the back, and rarely makes errors of judgment.

Group F is manageable. I don’t think they will beat Argentina, but playing Iran first up gives Nigeria a huge advantage. Score well against Iran and then play Bosnia in the second game, where a win would guarantee them the second round. All done and dusted before they even meet Argentina.

Iran: Can’t see Iran doing a whole lot in this years world cup. Against fast paced teams like Argentina and Nigeria they will struggle, and they wont get much from the Bosnia game either.

Only six of their squad play in Europe, while 14 are home based players. That stat tells you all you need to know. They simply will struggle to compete and would do well do get even one goal from the three games, even if they are Asia’s highest ranking team.

A positive is that in qualifying they kept ten clean sheets, and are meant to be solid at the back. But the world cup is a different ball game to the Asian qualifying process. In three world cups they have never got past the first round, so expect more of the same then and I predict nul point from Iran.

A more detailed review on Nigeria here and on Iran here

This was truly woeful stuff. Nigeria should be easily beating a team like Iran. They should have used their pace and strength to cause Iran all sorts of problems. But they didn’t. It was all too slow, the passing was sideways and not incisive, no real pace was injected into the game, and a serious lack of urgency on the part of the not so super eagles. Nigeria had no desire, no heart and no team. Lazy.

Iran played to their strengths and hats off to them for that. They could have actually snatched a winner, but a draw is a good result for them. Iran’s no 16 Ghoochanneijhad had a lot to do on his own up front, did well, and can take some pride in his days work.

A lot of talk pre world cup was on Nigeria and match fixing. I know its a lazy generalisation but when you see players who have top European game time struggling to make the effort against at team like Iran, who haven’t played a top 40 national team in two years, it does make you wonder.

Metro article on Nigeria and alleged match fixing

Guardian article on Nigerian agent who can fix world cup games

Next up Nigeria have to play Bosnia which will be another very dour tight game.

And Iran have the opportunity to marvel at Messi as he dribbles around their defence and score a few crackers.

Music to get you in the mood

Angband V Prince Segun Adewale