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STATS: Left back frailties hurt Bosnia and Portugal

All stats are courtesy of statistics website Squawka. Learn more about Squawka and the free app b...



STATS: Left back frailties hur...
Soccer

STATS: Left back frailties hurt Bosnia and Portugal

All stats are courtesy of statistics website Squawka. Learn more about Squawka and the free app by clicking here.

After another exciting weekend of World Cup action, the tournament continues today with the final round of group games.

But it will be a dead rubber for Bosnia, who were eliminated by Nigeria on Saturday night, following an opening defeat to Argentina.

Edin Dzeko has a right to feel aggrieved after the Manchester City striker had a perfectly good goal ruled out. But in truth, Nigeria were the better team over the 90 minutes. 

The Supereagles exploited a glaring weakness in the Bosnia left-back zone and as this Squawka graphic shows, Nigeria striker Emmanuel Emenike ran makeshift left-back Senad Lulic (a winger by trade) and captain Emir Spahic ragged, with a tournament high eight successful dribbles on the right flank...

The goal came from one of those situations, when Emenike out-muscled Spahic before laying the ball off for Peter Odemwingie.

Meanwhile, Portugal's left-back Andre Almeida left-back struggled against the USA in last night's enticing 2 - 2 draw in steamy Manaus.

A replacement for injured Real Madrid left-back Fabio Coentrao, the right-footed Almeida was targeted by the Americans - especially as the defensively absent Cristiano Ronaldo was well...absent - and ended up being carted off at half-time, with midfielder Miguel Veloso dropping into that position. 

Squawka stats show that six of the nine chances created by USA came from the right and this graphic shows the concentration of their crossing...

Admittedly the Squawka graphic shows that the USA failed to make the most of those crosses from their right flank.

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