It was a survival for the Eagles who also had no fewer than 40,000 of the officially declared 43,285 spectators to con\u00adtend with. They provided the tonic for the Argen\u00adtines, who were also in\u00adspired by the birthday boy and skipper, Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere was very electrifying. Argen\u00adtine supporters had be\u00adsieged the city the previ\u00adous night, some came by roads from their country that it was impossible for most Nigerian followers to secure hotels in Porto\u00a0Alegre.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Argen\u00adtina kicked off to the de\u00adlight of their fans. Within three minutes they were a goal up through the mag\u00adical Lionel Messi. Angel di Maria who score the goal with which Argen\u00adtina beat Nigeria in the final match of Beijing 2008 Olympics, went through Nigeria\u2019s de\u00adfence from the left flank and fired a shot, which Enyeama only succeed\u00aded in parrying to the path of a lurking Lionel Messi who fired to the roof of Nigeria\u2019s net.<\/p>\n
For the first time in the World Cup, Nigeria had been a goal down. \u00a0But rapid response by Ni\u00adgeria saw Ahmed Musa restoring parity within a minute. He got a pass in the left flank from Michael Babatunde and curled a knee level shot that caught Goalkeeper Sergio Romero napping. So before the opening five minutes, there had been two goals.<\/p>\n
Di Maria again! His blinder of a shot from 20 metres in the 29th minute nearly caught Enyeama napping. The Nigerian goalkeeper had to, like an uncoiling spring, stretched\u00a0hard to smother it into corner. Tension began to build up in Nigeria\u2019s area, as the Argentine surged forward ferociously, while the Nigerian side merely tried to slow down the game.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, news flittered in that the oth\u00ader game of Bosnia Her\u00adzegovina and Iran had swung in Nigeria\u2019s fa\u00advour with the Iran be\u00ading a goal down. As the time ticked down in the first half, pressure con\u00adtinued to piled on Ni\u00adgeria. In the first of the two minutes of added time, the irrepressible Lionel Messi curled a free kick that beat the entire Nigerian defence for a second goal.<\/p>\n
Nigeria kicked off the second half fero\u00adciously and within split seconds, an interchange of passes saw Ahmed Musa through, who slid the ball past an onrush\u00ading Argentine keeper for an equalizer.<\/p>\n
For the first time in a World Cup match, a Nigerian had scored a brace. But almost as it was in the first half, the Argentines responded quickly and got a third goal from Ezequiel Lavezzzi corner kick as Marcos Rojo scram\u00adbled the ball into the net.<\/p>\n
It was towards the end of the game that the Nigerian side put up spirited efforts to deadlock score lines. It proved impossible. Yet again, Argentina won by the odd goal as in previous encounters.<\/p>\n
It was a survival for the Eagles who also had no fewer than 40,000 of the officially declared 43,285 spectators to con\u00adtend with. They provided the tonic for the Argen\u00adtines,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n