Alex Iwobi made his 100th appearance for the Super Eagles as the team lost 2-1 to Portugal in an international friendly match at the Estádio Dr Magalhães Pessoa in Leiria on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old midfielder became the fourth Nigerian player to play a century of games for the Eagles — going joint-third on the team’s all-time appearance list alongside Joseph Yobo. Only Ahmed Musa and Vincent Enyeama have played more games for the men’s national team.
Although Iwobi marked the historic moment with a decent performance in midfield, it was not enough to curtail the Selecao’s qualities.
Pedro Neto and Francisco Conceicao scored on both sides of Akor Adam’s goals to ensure Portugal head to the World Cup on a winning run.
The friendly loss is Eric Chelle’s first defeat in regulation time as Super Eagles coach. It ended a record 25-match unbeaten run, with 16 wins and nine draws in the sequence. The two losses he suffered at the helm of the team came from penalty shootouts.
For Portugal, the Franco-Malian manager made five changes to the team that put in a good performance in their 2-2 draw against Poland, with the duo of Semi Ajayi and Calvin Bassey returning to the defence. Hope Akpan also took one of the fullback slots, as Terem Moffi was dropped for Iwobi and Fisayo Dele-Bashiru.
Cristiano Ronaldo had the first chance of the match, and it was a gilt-edged one, but the 41-year-old showed all his old age to skew his shot just wide of the post. The Al Nassr and Portugal captain also missed a header, but Pedro Neto had already put the Selecao ahead. The Chelsea winger placed a low shot into the far corner from a counterattack for 1-0 on 23 minutes.
Nigeria capitalised on poor defending caused by Adams’ good use of his physical strength to commit Portugal’s central defenders, who failed to clear a long ball. The Sevilla striker would collect the ball from Dele-Bashiru and drill a finish through Diego Costa, Portugal’s goalkeeper, for 1-1 on 37 minutes.
Portugal made a flurry of changes before the start of the second period, but continued to dominate and hit the bar in the process. Roberto Martinez’s side had to wait until the 75th minute to net the winner through Conceicao, who cut in onto his left before fizzling a hard, low shot beyond Maduka Okoye into the bottom far corner.
Victory sealed a third win in four friendly matches for Portugal, going into the 2026 World Cup, where they are one of the favourites, while Nigeria will wait until September for AFCON 2027 qualifiers.
