The curse - upended

 

Subject: The curse - upended


How often we have sat with our head in our hands as our football hero’s crash out of a football  international competition by blasting the ball to the right or left of the post or simply to the heavens by hitting a penalty kick over the bar by a country mile. The men seem famous (infamous) for it particularly against Germany.  Hugely well rewarded players simply seem unable to place the ball into the net when it matters, compounding our shame by once again failing at this last hurdle, the penalty shoot-out.
The women’s World Cup currently being played ‘down under’ has been as usual hyped by our press to the point that, as favourite nations such as USA, Germany, Brazil, crashed out leaving the way open for our much hyped Lionesses to cruse through to the final. Such were the expectations that countries like Nigeria were dreamed easy opponents, unfortunately no one had told Nigeria that as they sort to dissemble our team by the simple expediency of crowding us off the ball befe we could start the slick passing and off the ball positional play which had provided the nation with hope.
Football is an unpredictable sport even the greatest teams are brought down by chance deflections in the penalty box or moments of petulant madness, as in the case of Lauren James who, having been given a free kick for a heavy tackle walked over the prone body of the Nigerian player. It wasn’t a vicious foul and not as reported, a stamp but it was a foul never the less for which our heroine of the match against China was given her marching orders and will miss future games.
Nigeria came with a game plan, having watched how England overran China by China allowing themselves to play on the back foot and become mesmerised byEnglands forceful positional play. Nigeria were having none of that and bullied and chased the lionesses when they had the ball. Simple proactive football which caught the English team off balance and punished them before they could set up their interlinking play.
We were beaten in the game but won in the anomaly of taking penalties to decide the game. Whilst Nigeria fluffed their penalty kicks we were superb firing shots in leaving their goal keeper stranded.
And so we were let off the hook to fight another day but with the realisation that the hype was just that and whilst our players deserve the plaudits they are not the fully rounded champions we hoped they would be.