Super Eagles have ended their tour of Austria with a dull stalemate against Cameroon, with coach Gernot Rohr blaming the absence of some key players.
The Eagles held their West African neighbours and rivals to an uninspiring goalless affair at the Hama Trucks Arena, Wiener, Austria on Tuesday evening.
Tuesday’s tie was the second match between the two African giants in the space of four days, after the Indomitable Lions defeated Nigeria 1-0 on Friday in the first leg at the same venue.
Four-time African champions Cameroon dominated the opening half and thought they had scored again when they had the ball in the net but it was called off for offside as it ended 0-0 at the break.
The Super Eagles were much improved in the second half and created the best chances in the game thereafter courtesy of some beautiful football.
However, debutant Terem Moffi, Alex Iwobi, who missed the best chance of the game (a sitter), and senior man Kelechi Iheanacho (twice) were all guilty of missing begging chances in the match.
A share of the spoils this time for both nations at the end, a result that means Rohr has now only won five (5) of 19 friendly matches since he became Nigeria’s coach.
Speaking after the match, the Franco-German was full of praise for defender Valentine Ozornwafor before he added that it wasn’t easy playing without some absent key players.
“I am very happy with Valentine (Ozornwafor), who played for the first time, he did very well (and) we didn’t concede a goal,” Rohr said.
Result is not the most important thing in these friendlies but to test some players – to see some new faces.
We didn’t want to concede, we wanted to score,
had a lot of chances (in both matches) but couldn’t score.”
When you are missing players like (Victor) Osimhen, (Samuel) Chukwueze, (Joe) Aribo, Henry (Onyekuru), it is not easy,
Rohr added.