Super Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr has disclosed that he is awed by the ability of his players to stay calm while under pressure and keeping fighting hard to the final whistle, megasportsarena.com reports.
The Franco-German gaffer pointed out that the Eagles’ never-say-die attitude, huge fighting spirit and ability to avoid panicking helped them come from behind to win their last two matches.
Just as it had been last Wednesday in Uyo, who the Eagles romped from a goal down to beat Benin Republic 2-1 at the start of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, the Nigerian squad repeated same feat in beating Lesotho 4-2 away on Sunday, much to Rohr’s delight.
The gaffer went on to declare that the ability to romp back from behind is a rare feat that must be commended, especially coming from a squad saturated with so many young players like his, and praised his lads for rising to the occasion against Lesotho .
While many Nigerian fans and analysts are worried by what they called the team’s recent slow start to matches, Rohr attributed Sunday’s shaky burst to the long trip from Uyo, adding that he was happy to see his players later found their rhythm and showed huge fighting spirit.
Rohr retorted: ”I want to thank the people from Lesotho for the hospitality. About the match, we know that it is difficult to win in Lesotho especially when you concede the first goal.
“We had a long traveling by night, you can see in the beginning my players were not really necessary concentrated.
”In some matches we didn’t score the first goal, others we conceded the first goal. We scored first against Brazil, Ukraine and Tunisia in three previous matches and we didn’t win, only against Tunisia.
”I prefer to concede the first goal and to win the match and it is also shows that my team have a good spirit, they never give up, they don’t lose calm, they try to play well, they don’t panic.
”You know we have a very young team and this young team what I like is the enthusiasm they have to play football and even if they concede a goal they don’t stop.
”They played very well in the beginning and we had to run after this goal and to take the match in our hands which is what we did.
”In the second half, we changed a little bit our organization and it was better and better. I feel that my players they have fun when they play football and that’s the most important that we enjoy the game. We won okay but congrats to my colleague, he has a good team.”
