Bosnian coach Safet Susic persisted with his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation with a belief it would bring rigidity to Bosnia’s play and help stifle Nigeria’s attacking flow. He dropped Senad Lulic to left back which made the formation lopsided and Zvjezdan Misimovic operated ahead of him on the left wing. This enabled Miralem Pjanic to move further up field into an attacking midfield role where he could influence play and find through balls to star striker Edin Dzeko on the break and split Nigeria’s backline.
Whilst the Nigerian’s opted for a 4-2-3-1 which could switch to a 4-3-3 in transition from defence to attack with the attacking trio of Peter Odemwingie, Emenike and Ahmed Musa all able to interchange in attack, with Michael Babatunde sitting in a no.10 role providing support. Indeed their goal came from one such move.
In the opening stages it was Bosnia who took the game to Nigeria as the Europeans looked to exploit gaps in the African defence with clever movement and intricate passing, focussing particularly down their right flank with a belief that they could target Juwon Oshaniwa to gain an advantage.
Much of the blame for this defeat should lie at the hands of coach Susic. His decision to play Misimovic out wide seems a confusing one given the player looked out of place and with Lulic operating behind him he had little support and was a bystander for much of the game.
Misimovic is better when he can combine with his teammates and the plan may have been for him to combine with Pjanic when Bosnia were in possession. Instead Bosnia focussed play down the right flank and Misimovic was left looking clueless.
Perhaps Susic hoped that Lulic would get forward to support Misimovic and overlap the man deployed up field, but the Lazio man was stuck in defence as Nigeria hit on the counter and in the first half was not granted any licence to get forward.
Indeed Nigeria exposed this when Emenike burst down Nigeria’s right flank to out muscle Spahic in the box and crossed to find Odemwingie waiting in the box who left Asmir Begovic with no chance of saving his shot.
The defeat left Bosnia ruing what might have been after putting up a spirited performance against Argentina in their first match and then throwing it all away against Nigeria. Mistakes from officials may have cost them the chance of qualification from the group, but poor tactical decisions from their coach did too. Nigeria meanwhile can look forward with optimism, knowing that if they clinch a point against Argentina then they will advance from Group F to the knockout stage of the World Cup after ending a run of nine games without a win at the tournament.
Follow Ryan Ross on Twitter: @rross11