Greece was looking for their first goal and first victory in the history of the World Cup, and succeeded both against Nigeria at the Free State Stadium of Bloemfontein. The Greeks completely transformed in five days and after their opening World Cup 2010 game against South Korea, played with heart and courage, and now are set to play the whole tournament against Argentina next week. Nigeria on the other hand was disappointing, spent pretty much the entire game defending, and are now down with two losses in two World Cup 2010 matches.
Greece started strong in the game, had the ball possession and was slowly but surely creating chances against Nigeria’s defence. But in their very first opportunity Nigeria scored a goal after Greek goalkeeper miscalculated the ball’s direction, falling on the other side and conceiving a childish goal. Greece took a few minutes to recover from the shock, and after 20′ kept putting pressure on Nigeria from all sides. And when everyone thought that Greece would be once again unable to do something in the World Cup, Sani Kaita pretty much gave them the match: During a completely useless play, Kaita somehow decided to kick Vasilis Torosidis, get a straight red card, and leave his national team with 10 men on the field.
The player advantage gave wings to the Greek players, that were continuously hammering Nigeria for the last 15 minutes of the first half. Torosidis and Gekas had a chance each, and both Georgios Samaras and Dimitris Salpigidis were denied by Vincent Enyeama literally at the goal line. But after numerous warnings by the Greek offence, the goal finally came with Salpigidis’ shot bouncing off of a defender and ending up past Enyeama that was unstoppable until 44′.
The second half was not much different, with Greece desperately looking for a second goal and Nigeria’s entire team camping on defence. The Greeks had over 30 shots at goal before Vasilis Torosidis beat Enyeama for the second time 20 minutes before the final whistle sending Greece to heaven.
Vincent Enyeama was of course named the MVP of the game, and is definitely the top goalkeeper in the World Cup 2010 tournament so far.
