In one of the worst misses of all time, Nigeria’s Yakubu Ayegbeni failed to slot the ball into the open goal from close range for his country against South Korea today. The goal was the difference between Nigeria going home and advancing through to the second round of the 2010 World Cup.
A few minutes later, Yakubu made amends by scoring a penalty. But still, the open goal miss – if it had gone in – would have been enough to send Nigeria through.
Yakubu is one of the footballers who is well-respected within the Premier League. Let’s hope he can put this miss behind him and return to goalscoring form for Everton in the 2010-11 season.
This is definitely the biggest miss of the World Cup in South Africa and the biggest since WC2002 I believe.
All he needed to do was just put his foot (flatly) against the ball and not on angle against it. He even had the time to control and score since the goalkeeper was already down! What a miss. I do feel bad for the Nigerians.
It was a big miss but it was a offside anyway.
YAKUBU has been a player that by far the majority of nigerian fans love to hate. His game is based mostly on speed and strenght which he has lost a lot over the years. He is no longer fast and his contribution to the team has dimished by the year. And the fans has long been calling for his head. But he has been lucky that these days the team does not have a natural piont man ( a No 9) and he is seen as the available alternative. but he has always miss glaring chances beafore and i think this is the final straw and he might never play for the team again. Nigeria has the most indiscipline players in the planet, how can Osaze who comming to the world cup was clearly the best of the lot. Fail to make any impact whatsover. He was angry that the coach benched him for the major part of the game against argentina and then he had a burst off with the coach against greece and was never used in the last game. He might be the best player we had but his hot-head has denied the country of his contribution in the most important of satges.