Player Focus: Enyeama's Dream Draw Could Be France's Nightmare

Vincent Enyeama walked out of the Nigeria dressing room for the second half of their final group stage game against Argentina. As the goalkeeper approached the tunnel of the Estádio Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre, he spotted Nicola Rizzoli, the referee. “You gave Messi a lot of free-kicks!” Enyeama said playfully. “You gave him two already!”

The Nigeria No.1 had saved one. But the other, seconds before the interval, had curled beyond him and restored Argentina’s lead. “It’s very difficult. I know your job is very difficult.” Rizzoli empathised. Enyeama howled the laugh of a man left helpless by the talent of Messi. “I’m trying,” he sighed. “But he is so good. I’m not good… I’m s**t.”  A lot of his fellow professionals have been made to feel that way by La Pulga.

Rizzoli, in a second language, managed to find the right words right away. “If you’re not good,” he said. “You’re not here [at the World Cup].” That exchange, the humanity of it, the humility and the sporting nature of it, was one of the moments of the competition so far. Enyeama conceded again before the final whistle in a 3-2 defeat, but along with Ahmed Musa, he was his country’s best player. He had to be: 13 of Argentina’s 18 shots were on target. His performance went a long way to proving that, contrary to the 31-year-old’s own opinion of himself at half-time of that game, he isn’t s**t. Far from it.

Only Mexico’s anime-like shot stopper ‘Memo’ Ochoa went longer without conceding his first goal [275 minutes] than Enyeama [183]. Both play in Ligue 1. And that means Nigeria’s opponents in the last 16, France, are all too aware of how difficult it is to beat him. One anecdote in particular gives a sense of Enyeama’s prowess. After watching the Lille goalkeeper thwart Wissam Ben Yedder, Issiaga Sylla and Adrien Regattin, the Toulouse midfielder Étienne Didot was caught on camera saying to Enyeama’s teammate Idrissa Gueye: “Your goalkeeper is a real pain in the ass!”

It was one of nine games Lille won 1-0 in Ligue 1 last season and came during a 1,061-minute run without letting in a single goal. It led to the nickname Enyea-magnet, for the ball seemed attracted to him. That streak finally came to an end a fortnight before Christmas when a strike from Bordeaux’s Cameroonian midfielder Landry N’Guémo took a deflection off Enyeama’s centre-back Simon Kjaer, leaving him flat-footed. On the sidelines Gaëtan Huard puffed out his cheeks and breathed a sigh of relief. A fan in the stands leaned forward to high-five the Canal+ reporter. Bordeaux’s Nicolas Maurice-Belay ran over to embrace him. Enyeama had got within 114 minutes of the Ligue 1 record Huard had established at Bordeaux in 1993. Now it was safe again.

As he picked the ball out of his net, Enyeama wasn’t angry or disappointed. His reaction was much like the one he had in Porto Alegre on facing Messi. He smiled a big toothy smile. Life sometimes throws you a curveball or in this case a ricocheted shot and there’s nothing you can do about it. Accept it. Laugh it off. Move on. And that’s what Enyeama did.

He ended the campaign with 21 clean sheets, the most across Europe’s top five leagues, an honour he shared with Roma’s Morgan De Sanctis. Quite how Paris Saint-Germain’s Salvatore Sirigu edged Enyeama to the Goalkeeper of the Season award in Ligue 1 baffles. It really does. He was outstanding.

Quick off his line and along it, Enyeama distinguishes himself by his explosiveness. He also has a big wingspan for a man of his size [5’11”]. On hanging up his gloves, expect him to be considered one of Africa’s great goalkeepers. The French are under no illusion of the wall that Enyeama represents. He stands between them and a place in the quarter-finals. Scaling it. Knocking it down is a daunting task. Featured on the front page on Sunday’s L’Équipe, the headline read: “He wants to shatter our dream.”

Only four other goalkeepers faced more shots than Enyeama did in the group stages [47], but he made the most saves [18]. In fact, his shot-to-save ratio would have been higher had he not encountered one of the greatest players of all-time in Messi. Instead Ochoa [88.9%], Costa Rica’s Keylor Navas and Belgium’s Thibaut Courtois [87.5%] all posted slightly better numbers than Enyeama’s 85.7% after the opening trio of games.

The Nigerian does have something they don’t however. If Monday’s game in Brasilia comes down to a penalty shoot-out, Enyeama won’t just look to save the efforts of France’s takers, he might step up and attempt to score one himself. He has 18 career goals to his name. All from the spot. We could be in for a repeat of Portugal-England at Euro 2004 when goalkeeper Ricardo parried Darius Vassell’s kick and then put the decisive penalty away, securing his nation a place in the last four of that tournament.

“I said before the tournament that this would be the match of my dreams,” Enyeama told L’Équipe. It could well be France’s nightmare.

Can Enyeama inspire the Super Eagles to victory against France? Let us know in the comments below