Nigerian Super Eagle’s coach Gernot Rohr has said that the VAR system unsettled his team after his team’s win 2-1 over South Africa at the Africa Cup of Nations on Wednesday.
He said the time taken to confirm his opponents’ goal had unsettled his team.
The VAR system was introduced at the quarter-final stage and is being used in the AFCON competition for the first time and made its first significant intervention when it overruled a linesman’s decision to disallow Bongani Zungu’s goal for offside.
“For five minutes we had to wait, goal or no goal, and that was hard for my team,” the German told reporters in Cairo.
“The second goal did not go in for us and then you have seen this free-kick, and this VAR decision ——- you never know what can happen with VAR on a free kick.”
“Now we are mentally strong and we were able to come back,” he said. “The attitude of my players was wonderful. Such a good relationship with everyone.”
“We had a young team but this team continued to work and this result perhaps helped us to beat in the next game Cameroon, who were African champions.
“So, we will also learn from this match,” he added.
(Reuters/NAN)
