{"id":164824,"date":"2017-11-15T03:03:06","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T02:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=164824"},"modified":"2017-11-15T03:03:06","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T02:03:06","slug":"seagles-rebound-to-stun-argentina-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/?p=164824","title":{"rendered":"S\u2019Eagles Rebound To Stun Argentina 4-2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Iwobi scored twice as the Super Eagles of Nigeria fought back from 2-0 down against an Argentina side missing Lionel Messi to secure a stunning 4-2 friendly victory in Krasnodar.
\nSergio Aguero scored his 36th international goal to move clear in third place on Argentina\u2019s all-time scoring list as Jorge Sampaoli\u2019s side looked set to prosper despite the absence of Messi, who had returned to Barcelona after featuring in the 1-0 win over Russia last Saturday.
\nHaving drawn level with Hernan Crespo by scoring a late winner against the Russians, Aguero followed up his first international goal since June 2016 by tapping home Argentina\u2019s second to back up Ever Banega\u2019s free-kick opener.
\nYet, their comfortable cushion evaporated either side of the interval, with Kelechi Iheanacho inspiring a Nigeria fightback with a free-kick of his own in the closing stages of the first half.
\nTwo goals in the space of three second-half minutes from Iwobi and Bryan Idowu swung the game further away from Argentina, with the former then slotting home a fourth to secure Nigeria just their second ever win over their South American opponents.
\nThe astonishing turnaround came after Banega\u2019s 28th-minute free-kick gave Sampaoli\u2019s side a deserved lead, albeit they needed help from goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi to break the deadlock.
\nAfter nudging the ball outside his own penalty area, a careless Akpeyi curiously allowed Aguero to quickly close the gap, forcing him to pick it up to prevent embarrassment.
\nHe did not escape punishment for his error, however, as Banega curled the resulting set-piece opportunity into the net, Akpeyi opening up further space to target by taking an unnecessary step behind his wall.
\nAguero added a second eight minutes later to move clear of Crespo, the striker tapping home Cristian Pavon\u2019s low cross from the right, and at that stage, Argentina were coasting.
\nNigeria had barely threatened in the first half but still managed to get back in the game, Iheanacho following Banega\u2019s example by scoring from a free-kick in the final minute of the first half.
\nThe Leicester City striker\u2019s effort came after he had earlier left an impression on Nicolas Otamendi, catching his former Manchester City\u2019s teammate with an elbow.
\nYet, Iheanacho escaped with only a yellow card and, after halving the deficit, he heaped further pain on Argentina by setting up Nigeria\u2019s quick-fire double after the break.
\nAfter providing the square pass from the right that allowed Iwobi to sweep home an equaliser, the 21-year-old forward played in Idowu to curl a right-footed effort beyond goalkeeper Agustin Marchesin.
\nHit by a one-two combination, Argentina struggled to mount a response as they looked to get back on level terms in a game that had somehow escaped from their grasp.
\nWith no Messi to inspire any late heroics, Iwobi wrapped up the victory for Nigeria, the Arsenal forward finishing with his left foot after swerving his way beyond Javier Mascherano.<\/p>\n

\"Super

Super Eagles defender Leon Balogun (6) and Troost Ekong (5) closing in on Algerian attacker when both teams met in their final Russia 2018 qualifier, last Friday.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Iwobi scored twice as the Super Eagles of Nigeria fought back from 2-0 down against an Argentina side missing Lionel Messi to secure a stunning 4-2 friendly victory in Krasnodar. Sergio Aguero scored his 36th international goal to move clear in third place on Argentina\u2019s all-time scoring list as Jorge Sampaoli\u2019s side looked set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}