Nerves frayed and rapid verbal exchanged ensued in the Super Eagles bus while the Nigerian players made the 10 minutes journey to the Raybow Hotel after the team’s Ghana 2008 campaign started on stuttering note on Monday night.

The Eagles were thrown into confusion after they lost 1-0 to fellow title favourites, Cote d’Ivoire in Sekondi- Takoradi. Team spirit ebbed as the players traded blames, pointed accusing fingers and exchanged harsh words after their defeat.

Goalkeeper Austin Ejide who foiled several Ivorien incursions had to be restrained by officials and other players after the diatribes between him and Joseph Yobo almost culminated into fistcuffs.

The Bastia keeper faulted the team’s assistant captain of not closing in on Salomon Kalou who made a direct flight at goal after surging past three Nigerian defenders.

Ejide insisted that Yobo’s failure to stretch his leg for the ball outside the box before the swift Kalou dribbled past Danny Shittu was a poor decision. The two players had first exchanged bitter words on the pitch after the match before resuming the buck passing in the bus.

Yobo is believed to be nursing an injury which he copped in Malaga while the team trained in the Spanish tourist resort.

Mikel Obi, who stood out against the Elephants lashed at some of his colleagues of putting the team’s Nations Cup dream in jeopardy by their lack of urgency and poor finishing.

"We made one mistake and that was the goal. When you make such mistakes you pay dearly for it," Obi said. "We should learn from them and people should take full responsibility."

"If we can do that, we've got a long way to go in this tournament, because we've got a good team and we played well," the 20-year-old midfielder added.

"We just need to concentrate all the time if we want to achieve anything."

Team officials found fault with the team for unnecessarily slowing down the pace of the match and not making use of width.

Obafemi Martins shot at the keeper after he had his sight at goal on the hour after he was played in by Yakubu Aiyegbeni.

The team had an off day yesterday which they used to review their performance and re-build team spirit which has been breached