Severe defeat and serious warning to Indomitable Lions!

Placing them as one of the most crushing defeats in the past five years (3-0), the Super Eagles of Nigeria addressed a scathing warning to the Indomitable Lions, but without fangs or claws, a few weeks of recovery from the AFCON 2017 playoff.

One could trivialize the defeat of the Indomitable Lions face the Super Eagles in the friendly match Sunday in Belgium opposed the national teams of Cameroon and Nigeria. By saying that after all it was only a friendly match, with all that this entails experimentation, trial, and error or even release, is wrong.

But such an attempt at consolation would hold a thread, the time to erase the cruel pain of a real humiliation. Certainly, friendly matches, especially during the "days of Fifa" are primarily test bed to experiment with different national selections for the tactics, test new talents, make a review of staffing and above gauge their real level.

That said, Sunday's meeting cannot be reduced to a simple trial run. If the heavy defeat of the Lions could have a good, this is perhaps the lesson to be learnt from the organization of the meeting, the identity of the opponent, and especially the final result.

First observation: it comes after the renewal of the executive of FECAFOOT after the long interlude of standardization. The newly elected president, who was performing for the occasion his first official overseas, would certainly have liked a better result for Cameroon. The ground truth was quite different.

By choosing Nigeria as sparring partner, Cameroonian officials could not ignore that this was a serious customer. Wanting to rub a heavyweight of African Football (although convalescent) entailed risks to be considered in the overall strategy of preparation for the meeting. As a reminder, Cameroon has already won three finals of AFCON at the detriment of Nigeria. This creates a long rivalry between the two teams, instilling in the opponent an insatiable taste for revenge. Presumably this is the most voluntary and motivated team that won.

Second observation: the debacle comes again, highlight the many shortcomings of a selection that had huge difficulties to score more than one goal per game (see the results of the games against Indonesia, Thailand, Mauritania, Gambia ...) and it now becomes a sieve. The score is probably one of the heaviest in recent years. During the match, Volker Finke and his men showed again their guilty pleasures: slow ignition, lack of fluidity in the game, as evidenced by numerous passes to the opponent, lack of complementarities between lines, etc.

In its ensemble performance, the defeat of 11 October 2015 gives the impression of seeking an identity, a personality, as if his players had never been together. It is true that in the architecture of the different compartments, incongruities jump to the naked eye. Like this defense which repositioned the excitement of some players coming out of injury has contributed to burden the score, in addition to the insurance gap and the poor positioning of the goalkeeper.

The midfield was totally a messed and lack of solutions, two newcomers made their baptism of fire without really seizing the opportunity while the attack was completely silent, often confused with speed and haste.

The Players and the coaching staff are challenged to finally give a recognizable face in all the Indomitable Lions football matches.