Ugbade impressed by Super Eagles’ resilience in 3-3 Russia draw

Former Nigeria international Nduka Ugbade says the Super Eagles’ performance in their 3-3 friendly draw with Russia was particularly encouraging given the limited time they had spent training together.

Eric Chelle’s side recovered from 3-1 down in Moscow to earn a point in a six-goal contest on Tuesday, showing character during a dramatic second-half fightback.

Kelechi Iheanacho put Nigeria ahead early, but Russia responded strongly and appeared to be in control after turning the match around. Substitute Edokpolor Peter then produced an impressive individual goal before Akor Adams completed the comeback with a 90th-minute stoppage-time equaliser.

Ugbade believes the circumstances surrounding the fixture made Nigeria’s display more commendable, despite some understandable shortcomings in their passing and decision-making.

“To a large extent, I was impressed with the performance of the Super Eagles because if you consider the fact that these players have not played for more than two days before playing Russia,” Ugbade told Completesports.com.

The former Nigeria international acknowledged that a lack of collective preparation affected the team’s fluency during the match.

“A lot of passes and balls that were missing, and delay in passes too; all that can be counted as part of the game when, most especially, you have not trained together as a team for some days,” he said.

“But the quality of the goals and the efforts we showed for 90 minutes wasn’t bad at all.”

Nigeria’s response after falling two goals behind provided a positive result for Chelle and his technical team as they continue to develop the squad’s understanding and cohesion.

The draw also gave the Super Eagles a morale boost, with the team demonstrating the ability to remain competitive and recover from a difficult position despite having had little time to work together before facing Russia.