Friday 10:00 France vs Nigeria
Why its important: I am not going to lie, coming into this tournament I thought this would be France's toughest game. As you can see in my Group C Preview here. Now I believe France may have already had their toughest game from Greece. This game is still very important though. If France loses even one of their last 2 games against Nigeria or Afghanistan their fate will then be out of their own hand. On the other hand Nigeria has to win to stay alive. Here is the table:
Group C | GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pt | +/- |
Greece | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 17 | 8 | 13 | 9 |
France | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 5 | 7 | 17 |
Afghanistan | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
Nigeria | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 3 |
Botswana | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 21 | 0 | -17 |
Italy | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 23 | 0 | -18 |
What to expect: I would expect Nigeria to come out and try to pressure France as Greece has set the blueprint as to how to beat them. Nigeria will be flying and will look to go ahead early. However, I don't believe Nigeria to be as defensively solid as Greece and that will be a problem. Their "flying around" will leave them exposed at the back and their goalkeeping has been suspect all tournament. France will come out and try and keep possession and shoot on net as often as possible. If Nigeria can stay defensively sound I feel this game will close. But I have no faith in that. France will want to show why everyone is proclaiming them as the future champs and they will. I'll take a 5-3 win for France. I hope I am wrong though as Nigeria are my boys!
3 comments:
Can you show the remaining groups stats.
GREECE physically dismantled teams in their group. They still have no style or grace but i guess this isnt a beauty pageant. They get the job done. Whatever happens in the knockout stage is bonus for your team, great performance from being last place last year.
I wonder if the Nigeria coach can keep them calm and organised as i have my doubts,i watched his preformance aginst Greece head in his hands not knowing what to do with that in mind i will take France in a big win 7-1.
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