Jay Jay Okocha vs Manchester United 2003
- Thread starter rcoobc
- Start date
Loved watching him.
In hindsight I can't tell if he was overrated by me, or if he is generally underrated in the game (due to playing for Bolton).
In hindsight I can't tell if he was overrated by me, or if he is generally underrated in the game (due to playing for Bolton).
“So good they named him twice”
Over here in Nigeria he is to us what Pele is to Brazil,Maradona to Argentina or Zidane to France
There seemed to be a lot more of those players back in 90s/early 00s....played for a smaller team, not absolutely top class for one reason or another but massive entertainers who you loved watching.
Okocha, Benito Carbone, Wanchope, Laurent Robert, Ginola, Le Tissier etc
Okocha, Benito Carbone, Wanchope, Laurent Robert, Ginola, Le Tissier etc
Now that's a name I haven't read in a long time. But when I do, I always have to think about this:
Jeez veron looked all over the place in that video
A lot of the team did to be fair. I genuinely think we could bring up a lot of games under SAF (even when we were good), where they'd look as bad as our current team.
Ah, culture
Dinho's father right there
Dinho's father right there
Ya know I’ve been thinking of mentioning this a few times recently to try and demonstrate how character and leaders within the squad (and manager of course) can elevate the team and bring it all together to get results and how badly we are missing these characters in the team.
I remember a tonne of games where we looked a shambles.
But we got the job done more often than not of course.Absolutely loved watching him. Still can't believe he played for a Sam Allardyce team.
One of my favourite ever players
He was pretty good in Bundesliga but didn't quite happen for him at PSG IIRC (although PSG were nowhere near the force they are now 20 years back).
That Nigeria team in late 90s was really good. Won Olympics, had loads of top quality players as regulars in big european clubs (Kanu, Babayaro, Finidi George, Sunday Oliesh etc). Loved that game they had v Spain in 98 world cup and thought they'd have a really good run but Denmark destroyed them in the 2nd round. Then by 2002 the squad was past its best.
Bolton generally had a pretty good record v Man. United in that period, can recall them winning at Old Trafford a couple of times which was pretty good for newly promoted team.
They had some great technical players in Okocha, Djorkaeff and the underrated Giannakopoulos.
We no dey carry last.
At all!
so true. People forget how pragmatic the great man was and our football wasn’t slick at all a lot of the time. 2-1 89th minute winner against teams we should have been beating comfortably. People weren’t talking about systems or patterns of play then because we were just as happy winning ugly....
Our great teams are well documented but the in between was some rough stuff while he tried to rebuild and find the cornerstones of his next big team. Barthez. What a strange keeper he was! He could make great reaction saves from point blank and then let one in from 30 yards he should have been all over. He always felt too slight to me. He had that crazy look in his eye too like he was going to kick the ball into his own net at any minute
This is true, to me it also highlights the importance of a star forward. We always had a player(or more) to rely on to score that one chance. I think Ole is much more like Fergie in his approach and it can work, but people desperately want a coach in the style of Pep, a real tactician focused on the minutiae.Ya know I’ve been thinking of mentioning this a few times recently to try and demonstrate how character and leaders within the squad (and manager of course) can elevate the team and bring it all together to get results and how badly we are missing these characters in the team.
I remember a tonne of games where we looked a shambles.
I remember I really started following United during Arsenals spell, thinking why do I support United, this Arsenal team play sexy football. Then Mourinho came along and thinking how is that defence SO good, it's so much better than ours, they make it look so easy.so true. People forget how pragmatic the great man was and our football wasn’t slick at all a lot of the time. 2-1 89th minute winner against teams we should have been beating comfortably. People weren’t talking about systems or patterns of play then because we were just as happy winning ugly....
Our great teams are well documented but the in between was some rough stuff while he tried to rebuild and find the cornerstones of his next big team. Barthez. What a strange keeper he was! He could make great reaction saves from point blank and then let one in from 30 yards he should have been all over. He always felt too slight to me. He had that crazy look in his eye too like he was going to kick the ball into his own net at any minute
We had so many players over the years that you would think should never be starting for a prem winning team too.
Was he better than, say, a Solano, not for me.
More entertaining though
I miss the PL when you had players like Okocha at Bolton, these days if a side like Bolton had that kind of player City would buy them for 40m only for them to sit on the bench
I’ve been following since 1990 and of course there have been plenty of other teams playing better football than us during that time. The major thing about us was we had skillfull players but they always had a feck load of fight and spirit too. If you wanted to kick us we’d kick right back and sometimes more. We might have had a striker who wouldn’t be running around working his bollix off while we were defending but everybody else definitely was. No passengers. I hope we get back to that eventually.
He wishes he was as good as Okocha.... so do I
The Premier League YouTube Channel released this:
Absolutely bossed us a few times, which is why I was so pleased that Cristiano had his debut against them! I actually remember Djemba Djemba doing a good defensive job on him - much better than Scholes and Keane ever managed at least.
Absolutely bossed us a few times, which is why I was so pleased that Cristiano had his debut against them!
I actually remember Djemba Djemba doing a good defensive job on him - much better than Scholes and Keane ever managed at least.Players like him are eaten alive nowadays. Just look at how Antony was ridiculed after one failed showboat attempt.
Loved him back in the day. Would always be in my fantasy football team.
To be fair, he was mostly successful and his dribbles actually achieved something in terms of progressing the ball. Standing on one spot and spinning ain't that
That's because Antony has no end product. If he was producing the goals and assists then fans wouldn't give a damn. But him showboating while being utterly useless is just classless.
What Antony did was pointless and, frankly, bizarre.
Antony snd Okocha are miles apart in terms of footballing ability. The latter is on a different level.