Amokachi praises Musa

Nigeria caretaker coach, Daniel Amokachi, reserved special praise for Ahmed Musa after the player’s goal earned the Super Eagles a 1-1 draw with South Africa.
The Super Eagles played out a hard-fought stalemate against Bafana Bafana in Nelspruit on Sunday, despite the Southern Africans dominating much of proceedings.
Amokachi had Musa to thank for the draw after the attacker’s stunning goal gave Nigeria an 85th-minute lead before Bongani Zungu leveled the game in the 94th minute.
The intern Super Eagles boss was delighted by Musa’s goal and pointed out the forward has a habit for the spectacular.
“Musa is a good player, we all know what an experienced player he is and what a world class player he is, and you could see the difference (he made) in the goal he scored,” said Amokachi.
“It’s also reminiscent of the goal he scored against Argentina at the World Cup. He’s brilliant at getting the ball and turning at the edge of the 18-yard area, and swinging it into the corner.”
Bafana’s dominance on the day was not wholly unexpected for Amokachi after he fielded a relatively inexperienced side.
“We had about 90 per cent of our players who are collecting their first, second or third cap,” he said.
“The most important thing was for us to see whether they were built well enough, and experienced enough to take our football to the next level.”
Amokachi drew both positives and negatives from the performance, but was particularly disappointed with how injuries affect their rhythm.
“There are a lot of loopholes in football, definitely you will see a lot of good stuff and bad stuff,” he said.
“There were some injuries that crept in and that forced to make all six substitutions when we otherwise wouldn’t have to.
“When you do that in such an intense game, that’s what causes the loopholes, and it affected us defensively, I think we went to sleep when we shouldn’t have.”