Finally, Uruguay now have one foot in the Confederations Cup knockout stage, beating Nigeria, 2-1, Thursday night in Salvador, Brazil.
This
was a matchup of what had been two underwhelming sides in their first
matches. Nigeria looked sloppy against an overmatched Tahiti, and
Uruguay offered little to stop Spain. Both were looking to get a
critical win, especially given each side's next respective opponent.
Uruguay struck first in the 19th minute, Diego Forlan got on the left flank and delivered a low cross. Edinson Cavani looked to attempt a backheel but whiffed. The pass instead landed at the feet of Diego Lugano,
who completely scuffed the shot attempt, but it went into the goal
anyway. You don't get points for creativity, so that goal counts all the
same.
A very poor defending from Nigeria had the Uruguayans have a lead in the game, as they didn't clear the corner kick and failed to properly mark either Cavani or Lugano.
John
Obi Mikel leveled the scoring in the 37th minute. It was a nice piece
of dribbling after Mikel received the pass from Brown Ideye. He looked to be taking a shot with his right foot but put it onto his left and fired it into the back of the net.
After the goal, Uruguay started to lose their hold of the match. They
looked shaky at the back at times and didn't create much going forward.
It was the shell they crawled into against Spain as well. Halftime
couldn't come early enough for the Uruguayans. Luckily, they only had to
look at a 1-1 draw rather than a losing deficit.
Uruguay went back ahead courtesy of Forlan.
He's long been the engine for Uruguay, but he can't do it every time
out at 34 anymore. He is, however, still capable of scoring the
occasional wondergoal.
On his 100th cap for Uruguay, Forlan was running on goal down the left. You would think that any near-post effort would be knocked away. Instead, Forlan hit it so high and hard that Vincent Enyeama had no chance.
The goal came against the run of play as Nigeria continued to
dominate much of the match. With the goal, though, Uruguay began to get
more comfortable.
They got multiple chances on goal, with Cavani
proving surprisingly inept at finishing. He had at least two chances in
which he should have scored, only to make a mess of the situation.
Men in Blazers tried to relate the performance to something fans may have seen before.
All in all, this was probably a fair result. Nigeria looked the better
team for stretches, but the majority of the game was controlled by
Uruguay.
PLAYERS GRADES
Nigeria Grades
| Player | Grade |
| Vincent Enyeama
| B- |
|
Efe Ambrose | C+ |
| Godfrey Oboabona
| C+ |
| Kenneth Omeruo
| B |
|
Elderson Uwa Echiejile
| C+ |
John Ogu (off '66)
| B-
|
John Obi Mikel
| B+ |
|
Fegor Ogude
| C+ |
Nnamdi Oduamadi (off '45)
| C- |
Brown Ideye (off '73)
| B |
| Ahmed Musa
| C+
|
| Substitutes | |
| Michel Babatunde
| C
|
Sunday Mbah
| C+
|
| Joseph Akpala
| C+
|
Uruguay Grades
| Player | Grade |
Fernando Muslera
| B |
Diego Godin
| B |
Diego Lugano
| B |
Martin Caceres
| B- |
Maxi Pereira
| C+ |
Arevalo Rios
| B-
|
Alvaro Gonzalez
| C+ |
Cristian Rodriguez (off '88)
| B- |
Diego Forlan
| B+ |
Edinson Cavani
| C |
Luis Suarez (off '82)
| C+
|
| Substitutes | |
Sebastian Coates
| INC
|
| Alvaro Pereira
| INC |
What's Next
Both teams
will go level on points into their last games of the group stage.
Uruguay look to be in the driver's seat as they face Tahiti. Nigeria, on
the other hand, get Spain. It looks like it will be Uruguay advancing
through to the semifinal.
