Coach of the senior national team of Zambia Wedson Nyirenda has played down the disallowed goal his team endured in their 0-1 loss to Nigeria in the World Cup 2018 Qualifiers in Uyo.
Mulenga scored what could easily have been the opening goal of the game in the first half, but he was incorrectly flagged offside by the assistant referee moments before he slipped his effort into the net of Nigeria.
Nigeria went on to win the game thanks to a second half goal from substitute Alex Iwobi, but Nyirenda who admitted their goal should have stood insisted that Nigeria deserve to win the tie regardless.
” ” There was a lot of decisions which went the way of the home team (Nigeria) , the goal we scored was not offside. I cannot talk about it, the game is over, playing away against the great stars of the World football like Mikel Obi and Victor Moses, it is another motivation to the players to do well”, Nyirenda said in the post match conference.
Nyirenda however faulted the various injury blow his team suffered in the run up to the game as part of the reason why they lost the game, which effectively ended their hopes of qualifying for the World Cup in Russia.
” Today’s game I think we had so many injuries in the team but despite that I think we accounted for ourselves very well. We played a great game today, and I dare say this is the best game of all the qualifiers in this series in this group”.
Osas Mahawi
