There’s some good news for Iran. The team must beat Bosnia-Herzegovina to stand a chance of reaching the last 16, and, on Saturday night, Bosnia looked disjointed and uninspired against Nigeria, losing 1-0. But the bad news is that Nigeria has proven once again that they are a far better team when an opponent comes at them. Nigeria only needs a draw against Argentina in its final game to make the knockout phase for the first time since 1998, and Argentina will without a doubt charge at them with confidence and might.
Steven Keshi, the Nigeria coach, will take much of the credit for his side’s win, as he should, but this was a result rooted as much in a tactical gamble that failed from Safet Susic as in his own involvement. Susic had suggested before the game that he would return to a 4-4-2 against Nigeria, bringing back Vedad Ibsevic to re-assume the formation that had carried them through qualifying. Instead, tough, he stuck with a 4-2-3-1, but made a number of key changes from the game against Argentina. Senad Lulic, the Lazio winger dropped back to left-back, with Haris Medunjanin coming into the back of midfield. That meant Miralem Pjanic pushing forward into a central playmakingrole, with Zvjezdan Misimovic shunted over to the left.
The idea, presumably, was twofold: get Pjanic involved higher up the pitch to link with Edin Dzeko, with Misimovic drifting infield to allow Lulic to overlap. It’s true that Pjaic created three chances for Dzeko in the first half, twice laying them through one-on-one with Vincent Enyeama. The first time Dzeko beat the keeper only to be wrongly called offside; the second time Enyeama saved. Then, just before half-time, Pjanic found space in the right and cut the ball back for the centre-forward, who fired wide.
But the negatives far outweighed the positives. Lulic was horribly exposed at left-back, frequently leaving space behind him, a situation not helped by the uncharacteristic skittishness of Emir Spahic. Again and again, Nigeria attacked that area and it was from that zone that they took the lead after 19 minutes, Emmanuel Emenike outmuscling Spahic and adding to his misery, before cutting the ball back for Peter Odemwingie to slam through the legs of his Stoke City teammate Asmir Begovic. Whenever Nigeria came under pressure, they always had that escape route and that was something that didn’t change even after Sejad Salihovic —another midfielder but one who is rather more experience at playing in the back four—came on.
Perhaps Susic underestimated Nigeria after the game against Iran. It’s true that without Sunday Mba—left behind after he arrived late for the squad get-together, he said because of visa issues—they lack a central creative intelligence to bind the pace of the rest of the front four, but that is less relevant against a side that comes at them and leaves space behind for the power of Emmanuel Emenike too attack. Against Iran’s deep-lying defence, Nigeria needed a player with flair and guile to try to work the ball through tight areas: against Bosnia all they had to do was knock the ball into space and run.
Susic’s attempts to get back into the game consisted of little more than throwing Ibisevic on and switching to a midfield diamond. That made Bosnia extremely narrow, and still left Misimovic and Pjanic getting in each other’s way. The one serious chance that Bosnia did create when chasing a game late on was the definition of a lack of width—a long ball down the middle that Dzeko took down, hitting his shot on the turn. He mis-hit it, which seemed to have outfoxed Enyeama, but he swung his left leg at the ball as he dived to his right and the ball cannoned off his thigh against the post.
That aside, Bosnia were made to look desperately short of creativity. That’s something at which Keshi is extremely good: he has a knack of closing games down so it appears that Nigeria’s opponents aren’t trying. It happened at the last Cup of Nations in the quarter-final against Ivory Coast, it happened in the final against Burkina Faso and it happened again against Bosnia. Until that late Dzeko chance, they created almost nothing of note in the second half. It’s true that they were denied a legitimate goal by an erroneous linesman’s flag, but the reason they lost was their inability to extricate themselves from the trap Keshi had set.
That has ramifications for the final round of games. Nigeria are much happier sitting back and absorbing pressure and, as Iran proved, Argentina are not good at breaking down well-organized deep-lying defences. Given a draw between Argentina and Nigeria would see both through, with Argentina at the head of the group, it’s entirely possible that that is a game played without any great urgency, with both teams happy to settle for a point. It may even be that Alejandro Sabella, the Argentina manager, chooses to rest key players with his side already through.
On the positive side, though, Bosnia looked demoralized at the end and, with nothing to play for, they also may select a weakened side. Susic, surely, will not make the same mistake again and, unless there’s an injury problem, it seems likely that Sead Kolasinac will return at left back—or, if he does not, that both Salihovic and Lulic will play on the left in a 4-4-2. The experiment with Misimovic on that flank has to be abandoned. The skittishness of Spahic, who misplaced two passes in the first 10 minutes against Nigeria and never quite recovered, also represents an opportunity.
The other lesson Iran can draw is that Bosnia left space behind them when they came forward. Iran can set up, at least from the start, as they did in their first two games, with the tight 4-1-4-1, and have reasonable confidence that they will get at least a couple of chances on the break, with the option of adopting a more gung-ho approach later in the game.
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