Africa Cup of Nations 2019: Nigeria 2-1 South Africa - 3 reasons why the Super Eagles won

#2 The psychological edge

There truly is no love lost between the Super Eagles and Bafana Bafana

The Bafana Bafana that stepped out of the tunnel to face Nigeria seemed tame, providing very little in terms of spunk, a far cry from the South Africa we saw against Egypt.

Despite having the last competitive win against Nigeria, South Africans had never beaten the Super Eagles at the Africa Cup of Nations, with the Nigerians holding a huge 6 win ratio to South Africa's 2 in 13 competitive games.

Football is a mental sport as well, and perhaps the South Africans respected their more renowned opponents way too much.

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#1 South African ineptitude in defence and attack

Ekong celebrates his winner

South Africa have been evidently lacklustre upfront, scoring just 2 goals in four AFCON 2019 games prior to their clash with the Super Eagles.

The worrying trend continued against Nigeria, as they seemed toothless going forward all through the game. Their only goal was a somewhat controversial one, and VAR was needed to give it a nod.

Defensively last night, South Africa were all over the place. The Nigerians didn't take their chances, otherwise, it would have been embarrassing. Throughout the game, the Bafana Bafana defenders seemed clueless, allowing the Nigerian attackers to have a field day.

This was evident in the run-up to both goals scored by Nigeria, with Chukwueze waltzing into the middle of the Bafana Bafana defence unopposed to get two pops at goal for the first, and William Troost-Ekong scoring the winner quite easily after the confused South African defenders failed to clear the ball or pick him up.