All Possession, No Punch: How the Eagles Lost Without Firing

All Possession, No Punch: How the Eagles Lost Without Firing

By Searchlight Journal

Nigeria lost. That happens in football. Even Brazil loses. Even the eagle sometimes dives from the high heavens, misjudges the wind, and misses her prey.But what made this particular loss hurt was not the scoreline—it was the arithmetic of ambition.

In 120 minutes of football, Nigeria managed two shots at goal. Two. One landed on target. Meanwhile, Morocco rained 16 shots, five of them properly troubling the goalkeeper. That is not just a defeat; it is a statistical concern.

Football, like life, is allergic to timidity. The British elite commando squads put it in the blunt wisdom of a grandfather’s proverb: “He who dares, wins.” You do not win arguments, elections, or matches through excessive politeness or cultivated docility. You win by taking risks. By daring. By accepting, now and then, the embarrassment that precedes glory.

And so I sat before my TV long after the final whistle, staring at the screen like a man who knows the answer but keeps asking the question anyway. What if we had dared to shoot from the edge of the box or outside the 18-yard box? What if we remembered that goals do not require notarized approval before they are attempted?

What if we still had a Sunday Oliseh, a Jay‑Jay Okocha, a Taye Taiwo, or a Chris Ohehen—men who believed that the ball, when struck with conviction, could put a bullet to shame? What if those thunderous long-range efforts were still part of our national football psyche—those zinging, winging whoozers the late, great Ernest Okoronkwo of blessed memory famously called “intercontinental ballistic missiles”? Shots launched like rockets off the boot, laser-guided into the net, with goalkeepers watching in awe as spectators. By the way, what happened to telegraphic passes—the kind that carried urgency, menace, and bad intentions? The kind that told defenders, “I am coming, and I am not apologizing.”

Instead, we passed. And passed. And passed again. Sideways. Backwards. Gently. As though the objective was not to score but to demonstrate good upbringing.

We do have a good team. No doubt about that. Disciplined. Structured. Well-drilled. But they are beginning to resemble Indian movies—beautifully produced, emotionally invested, and tragically predictable. In Indian movies, you are guaranteed lovers singing in slow motion, a snake charmer making a cameo, synchronized dancing, and—without fail—a train passing on its way to Bombay.

This Super Eagles specialise in elegant build-up play, ceremonial possession, and the kind of delayed shooting that requires committee approval after twenty-seven passes. Then a polite regrouping to resume their courtship of the ball. I honestly thought we had outgrown this phase after watching our match with Algeria, but football, like anthropology, has a way of resurrecting ancestral habits. The atavistic principle sadly returned—right on schedule—against Morocco.

Football is not chess. It is not ballet. It is a street fight conducted under rules. Sometimes you must shoot even when it feels impolite. Sometimes the ball must be struck simply because it is there. Every serious team needs snipers who can pick targets from distance. And often, rebounds from the work of snipers reward the bold—not the courteous.

Until we relearn that lesson, we may keep losing matches we dominated on paper—and winning praise for performances that frightened nobody.
Possession is good. Control is nice. But goals, like success in life, belong to those willing to take the shot. Those who dare!