Nigeria left the World Cup but they are likely to win any prize given for the miss of the tournament when Yakubu somehow contrived to shot wide from three yards out when presented with a glaringly empty net. That summed up Nigeria’s time in South Africa. They took the lead against Greece and South Korea but in both matches squandered opportunities to kill the game and were eliminated by their own defensive lapses which in Durban allowed Lee Jung-soo and then Park Chu-young to see Korea through to a difficult looking fixture against Uruguay. Yakubu at least atoned for his miss by having the courage to take a second-half penalty but Nigeria once more exited a World Cup looking far less than the sum of their parts.