Football Nigeria -- Eagles Etcetera

Freetown ... In spite of the vaunted Kelechi Iheanacho video "We dey vex come" claim of Nigeria's preparedness to vanquish Sierra Leone in Freetown today, it ended in a dud and thud. A 0-0 draw was far underneath what Nigerian fans and football administrators hoped for in an African Cup of Nations qualifier but it kept Nigeria well on its way to reaching another AFCON finals with two games left on the slate. But it is yet unknown whether the Manager Gernot Rohr will be at the helm for those remaining two qualifying games. Rohr had hinged his prospects on European-bred talent but their productivity against a lowly-ranked Sierra Leone was a disappointment and far rom what was expected. The NFF had hinged its cards on this breed of footballers as the hopes of challenging world powers loomed in the horizon. Yet, challenging the also-rans in Africa proved too tall a challenge when it counted. Gernot Rohr In the end, football once again underlined that merely being bred in Eur...

Benin -- This venue, historically, has not been a good place for Nigeria's national team. Today, it appeared that this was going to change as Nigeria raced into a 4-0 lead over Sierra Leone in an African Cup of Nations qualifying match. The lead seemed insurmountable. After all, since Nigeria began playing internationals in 1949, it is difficult to remember Nigeria ever conceding four goals after going ahead by the same score! Yet it happened! Lowly-ranked Sierra Leone, with internationals strewn all over some poorly known footballing world, came back to stun a star-studded Nigeria n a 4-4 tie. But this is football. Names, pedigree, and much of that mean very little. What matters is what happens on the football field. To be fair, this was a game Nigeria had no business tying. Nigeria clearly dominated much of this game. This is a game that should have been won going away. However, putting their feet off the pedal cost Nigeria and the shambolic defending plus a disappointing effort ...

Our interest here is to examine 39 players debuted by Gernot Rohr since he took over the reins as manager of the national team of Nigeria (see Table 1). We use this player data set to examine the following questions 1. Where are these players drawn from? 2. Stats on success rate of players debuted under Rohr. 3. Does a player's abode predict his staying power with the national team?  It is important to note the parameters of data used in this report. It includes only players debuted by Rohr. For instance, William Ekong and Ikechukwu Ezenwa are not included because they debuted before Rohr was appointed. Ikouwen Udotin, who played a game under Rohr, was excluded because his debut was under another manager. Then some players who debuted under Rohr such as Stephen Odey and Alhassan Ibrahim have only games under Rohr included in the analysis even though they played additional B international games under a different manager. Over all, Gernot Rohr appointed in 2016 has debuted 39 players...