The first and the only Football Psychologist in Nigeria, Kehinde Adeyemi who was trained by the English Football Association has dissected the loss of Nigeria’s Super Eagles to the Elephants of Ivory Coast during the final of 2023 AFCON.
Adeyemi who doubles as the Director of Sports at the prestigious Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) while speaking with the sporting press opined that there are different psychological approaches to different situations in the game of football.
His words: “Let me first congratulate our darling Super Eagles of Nigeria for coming second behind the Ivory Coast as the second best team in Africa and also congratulate West Africa for producing the two finalists at the just concluded AFCON 23 that was hosted by Ivory Coast.”
“Although, so many things have been said on why the Super Eagles could not defeat their Ivorian counterparts whom they had earlier defeated during the group stage of the competition.
“Some people were of the opinion that the defensive pattern deployed by the Nigerian coach was responsible for the team’s failure to win the glamorous African Nations cup for the fourth time.”
He continued, adding that, “the fact remains that if the Coach had used the same defensive tactics to beat the Ivorians in the group stage of the competition the Ivorians knew they had to win to play in the final and also with their large unrepentant supporters in attendance.
“Then, it’s reasonable to say that the pattern was good enough to beat the Ivorians at any stage of the AFCON 2023. However, from a psychological point of view, it is naturally difficult for any team to defeat another team twice in the same championship. I am not saying it’s not possible but it will require a double effort for a team to defeat another team for the second time in the same competition.”
“However, it was the Ivorians that doubled their efforts as revealed by the statistics on the ball possessions of the two sides during their group stage and the final matches. If the Ivorians had used an entirely new team during the final match against the Nigerian team, they would have played the same way and defeated Nigeria just because they had the right mentality for the final match.”
Adeyemi, however recalled the Algiers 90 when Algeria that hosted the 1990 AFCON beat Nigeria in the opening match by 5-1 and also defeated Eagles in the final by a lone goal to lift the cup as the only case when a team will defeated same opponent twice in an AFCON tournament and concluding that “the game of football is more of the ‘mind’, therefore, what goes on in the mind is critical to performance and the outcome.”
Packaged by Olanrewaju Agiri
