By John Egbokhan
Guatemala coach,  Ever Almeida has blamed his team’s 5-0 routing in the hands of Nigeria’s Flying Eagles on the fast play of the African champions.

The Nigerian side, romped to the largest-margin of victory at the on-going tournament, thrashing their Central American opponents who were making their debut at the finals. Two first-half strikes from Edafe Egbedi and another three added by Ajagun, Kayode, and Musa in that order, in the second half, put the match well out of reach  for coach Almerida young side.

Crucial to the Nigerian success was VVV-Venlo’s Ahmed Musa,  the fast-paced winger, who troubled the Guatemalans all match long, distributing fine crosses for Egbedi and Kayode to net

And after seeing his team get the drubbing of their life, Coach Almerida told fifa.com that they were not able to deal with the high tempo of the game played in Armenia.

He also said that they were poor in front of goal and promised a better showing in their match against Saudi Arabia.

“We knew that it was going to be a hard match for us and we knew that Nigeria would rely on their fast players. The tactical reason behind our defeat was that we were not able to deal with the match well and stopped the threat of the Nigerians. Not scoring is also a problem for us and we need to work on that aspect of our game in the future.”