Confederations Cup 2013 - Tahiti vs Nigeria

1st half

Tahiti has one professional football player, the rest of the team are teachers, couriers etc by profession. So it's fair to say that the team consists of amateurs. Nigeria may not be the very best football team in the world, but it's a team full of pros. Needless to say Tahiti really had no chance to begin with.

Uwa Elderson Echiejile scored Nigeria's first goal on the 5th minute. Teammate Nnamdi Oduamadi scored the second goal five minutes later. On the 26th minute Oduamadi scored again and the first half ended 3-0.



2nd half

Tahiti had set one goal for their journey in the Confederations Cup 2013. The goal was to score at least once in the tournament. That goal was reached quickly when Jonathan Tehau scored Tahiti's first goal. Five minutes later Tehau scored again. This time unfortunately for Nigeria. On the 77th minute Oduamadi completed his hat trick and three minutes later Echiejile scored his second and Nigeria's sixth goal of the evening. Final result was 6-1 for Nigeria.

I think that Tahiti played well for their own level. Even though I'm sure it's a great opportunity for Tahiti I also think that it's kind of horrible to make them play against professional football players...
It was great that they managed to reach their goal so early and maybe now they can come up with a new goal to reach in the matches against Uruguay and Spain.

Nigeria, despite the result, wasn't great. The result could've been 20-0 if the players would've at least a few times passed the ball to each other instead of always shooting themselves. I'm sure that against a more equal opponent they can do better as against Tahiti they were too arrogant to really succeed in what they tried.

6-1 may seem like tremendous result, but against a team that consists of men that aren't even professional footballers it really isn't. Remember that Spain beat Italy in the finale of Uefa Euro Cup 4-0  with a goal difference only one less more and Italy is one of the best football teams in the world with every single player playing in the best clubs in the world. If this is the best Nigeria got they really won't have a chance against Uruguay or Spain. And if they do get it together and play better against other teams imagine this scenario: Spain wins all their games(I hope so) and Nigeria and Uruguay result in a draw. Then it will be down to the goal difference to decide which one progresses.
Nigeria beat Tahiti by only 5 goals and there is no doubt that Uruguay can do much much better. It's for sure that Luis Suarez and co won't sympathize Tahiti, at least enough to not score as much as possible. Maybe then the Nigerians will feel sorry for their egoistic and arrogant approach towards Tahiti...