Ghana holds Nigeria in Lagos

LAGOS, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Nigeria 0 Ghana 0
International friendly
Red card: Bernard Aryee (Ghana)
Attendance: 20,000
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The Black Stars of Ghana has once again held the Super Eagles to a goaless draw in Lagos to maintain their invicibility at the National Stadium against the Eagles this decade.
The friendly tie in which the star players of both sides were absent, was organised by the Nigeria Football Association [NFA] to mark the draw for the 22nd Nations Cup to be co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana in January.
The goaless draw brings to 17 the number of drawn games in-between the two teams. Ghana had won 19 as against 12 by Nigeria out of a total 48 encounters.
Super Eagles led by Ajax's Tijani Babangida made more attempts at goals but these attempts were always badly coordinated.
Babangida, Gabriel Okolosi and Kenneth Zeigbo missed several scoring chances especially in the first half when the Black Stars' defence look jittery. Twice, Okolosi had Ghana's keeper at his mercy and twice he failed to find the net.
Black Stars on the other hand made good use of positional play spraying accurate passes and had ample space to display their dribbling skills. But their undoing was poor shooting in front of goal especially with the porous defence paraded by the Eagles until the coming of Sani Abacha who substituted injured and obviously half-fit, Kingsley Obiekwu who was in the central defence.
Babangida who played a bit of maturity to lift his game, was the target of Ghanaian defenders who were hacking him down at the slightest contact.
Ghana's Bernard Aryee was sent off after one of such tackles, the player had earlier bagged a yellow card for a foul charge on Babangida.
The Black Stars' defenders led by Captain, Mohammed Gargo and then goalkeeper Kingston Richard soaked all the pressure mounted by the Eagles, conceding six corner kicks in the first half but none was utilised by the Eagles.
Pre-match ceremonies which could not hold before the match was observed before the commencement of the second half.
Alhaji Atiku, the special guest of honour met players and officials of both sides and also decorated CAF president Alhaji Issa Hayatou with an award presented by the Nigerian supporters' club.
The Black Stars coached by Italian Guiseppe Dossena came into the second half more organised. Their attack led by Arthur Moses invaded Eagles' goal area several times but Abacha's yeoman's job and goalkeeper Ndubuisi Egbo's good timing and confidence denied the visitors any goal.
Egbo was injured during one of such daring saves and was replaced by Murphy Akanji.
Infact, Abacha who plays for Kwara United proved that there was no substitute to fitness as he was everywhere in the defence to punture all goal bound moves by the Stars.
Jero Shakpoke did not live up to expectation. Emmanuel Teberen also had to do extra job to cover for the inadequacies of Chibuike Okeke and Dandy Okongo who perhaps were suffering from stage fright.
Coach Shuaibu Amodu introduced Victor Skinn and Eniola Aiyeyuyomi for Zeigbo and Babangida respectively in his quest to break the deadlock but Dossena tightened his defence to curtail the Eagles.
Dossena and his players received loud ovation from a group of Ghanaian supporters who turned out in their bright yellow colours to cheer their countrymen.


Ghana?s Lineup was as follows: Richard Kingston, Eben Dugbartey / Yaw Owusu, Osei Kuffuor (Of Hearts of Oak), Jacob Nettey / Justice Ampah, Mohammed Gargo, Mark Edusei / Edmund Copson. Augustine Arhinful / Sani wahab, Alex Nyarko, Hamza Mohammed, Arthur Moses and Bernard Aryee.