Nigeria head coach Gernot Rohr said on Tuesday night that he was happy with defender Brian Idowu’s performance how he dealt with Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi, despite their 2-1 loss which knocked them out of the tournament. “When you have a Lionel Messi on the right side, coming in on his left foot, you must have a very good defender with a very good right foot also…[Idowu] is much better defender, he did well, especially against Messi, he can play both with his left and right foot. So if you have such a good player [as Messi], you have to have good defenders,” Rohr said.
He added that Brian Idowu had fitted in seamlessly well into the Nigeria team since making his debut against Argentina in a friendly in November 2017 and it was the 26-year-old’s dream to play a World Cup match in Saint Petersburg, the city where he was born. “For him, it’s more than football. It’s a wonderful story and with few more minutes and a goal, this story would have been perfect,” Rohr said. Idowu was born in St. Petersburg in 1992 and started his youth career in local club Zenit.