World Cup: Why I Played Idowu For 90 Minutes – Rohr

FRANCIS ACHI/St. Petersburg, Russia.

Gernot Rohr, the Technical Adviser of the Super Eagles has explained the reason he did not start with the players that gave a fantastic second half performance against Iceland that ended 2-0 in favour of Nigeria.

Rohr disclosed to PM EXPRESS in St. Petersburg after the 2-1 loss of the Super Eagles to Argentina and eventual painful crashing out of Nigeria from the 2018 World Cup that he played Brian Idowu despite being a natural right footed player at the left full back due to the ability of Idowu to tackle perfectly well with his right foot .

” I played Brian Idowu. Yes . He is a natural right footed player . We have Tyronne Ebuehi who played very well in the game against Iceland. Tyrone is young and also right footed , but Idowu was used in this game and you could see that he marked Lionel Messi, ” Rohr said.

” We watched Messi. He likes to dribble to the right and we felt Brian will be more suitable to help the team tackling Messi and he did well”.

” Tyrone is more offensive. He likes to move forward. He is young and we saw the penalty the team conceded against Iceland. Tyrone is young and I felt Idowu will be better defending and he did well.”

“Brian was born in St. Petersburg in Russia. I think that he did well playing a World Cup game at the city of his birth.”

” The team is made up of more players who are very young and this team will come better and stronger in the next four years, ” Rohr concluded.

Nigeria has featured at the World Cup six times and has failed to qualify for second round three times in 2002, 2010 and 2018 edition.

Late Stephen Keshi, a Nigerian coach led the team to the Brazil 2014 World Cup where the team got to the second round losing 2-0 to France.