
Excellent football was on display on Monday night at Craven Cottage as African champions, Nigeria drew 2-2 with Italy in an exciting friendly international.
Many are adamant the game is the best performance by a Nigerian side for a long time and supersport.com now looks back on a special night from the perspectives of the lessons learnt in the first match played by Stephen Keshi’s charges since qualification for the 2014 Fifa World Cup was achieved.
Slow starters
Nigerian teams are notoriously slow starters to games and that was again displayed on Monday night.
The Super Eagles only started showing their true quality after Giuseppe Rossi had given the Italians the lead in the 12th minute.
Nigeria went on to score two quick goals to go into the break 2-1 up.
Exasperatingly, the African champions conceded again just two minutes after the restart as they began the half slowly again.