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Sports News of Friday, 7 May 2021

Source: nationonlineng.net

Untold story of Eagles Golden generation

The 'Golden' Super Eagles represented the country in the 1994 World Cup in USA play videoThe 'Golden' Super Eagles represented the country in the 1994 World Cup in USA

Thirty-seven players and a motley coaching crew led by self-styled Dutch-Nigerian, Clemens Westerhof were men that wrought Nigeria’s first-ever qualification for the FIFA World Cup at USA ’94.

This class of Super Eagles were reckoned as the ‘Golden Generation’ of Nigerian football on the strings of other achievements including winning the country’s second Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title in Tunisia 1994 en route to the World Cup in America as well as winning the continent’s first-ever soccer gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics otherwise known as the Centennial Olympic Games.

It has been ages now that Nigerian football soared to such a great height but the memories of the Super Eagles of that era is still fresh even more so when some of the squad’s protagonists including the hard-tackling defender Augustine Eguavoen, mesmerizing midfielder Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, versatile midfielder Sunday Oliseh, dare-devil winger cum striker Emmanuel Amuneke and then fringe but speedy winger Tijani Babangida assembled for a common goal.

This time, the once-golden boys of Nigerian football were at their talking best at the virtual launch of the wave-making Audacity To Refuse, the memoirs of former national team’s captain and coach, Oliseh and what a momentous occasion as the lads regaled the audience with some of the hidden Nigerian football treasure of those heady days of the 1990s when Africa and indeed, the world was Super Eagles oysters.

“Audacity To Refuse gives you an insight to all my stories and I was able to share the highs and the lows of my career; be it personal ones in the club sides I played in and also the dressing rooms at club and the national team even without revealing much as regards personalities because I don’t want to point fingers at anybody,” the 46-year-old Oliseh who had a storied career with some of the top European cubs including German FC Koln and Dortmund as well as Dutch giant Ajax and Italian Juventus, set the tone for what was going to be a lively and illuminated session.

“I also expressed and tried to share how we were able to do some of the things we did with the Super Eagles during our own time; especially winning the Nations Cup and qualification for the World Cup in 1994 as well as winning the soccer gold medal at the Olympics in 1996.

“I put everything down in detail and in a chronological way that everybody can relate with and learn from it.”

Yet the launch of Audacity To Refuse was a day of reckoning and tributes for the late ‘Goals father’ of the Super Eagles, Rashidi Yekini who died nine years ago (May 4, 2013) in some excruciating circumstances.

The former Vitoria Setubal striker is not only Nigeria’s all-time goal scorer but he was the scorer of the country’s first ever goal at the FIFA World Cup with the opener in the 3-0 thrashing of Bulgaria at the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas on June 21, 1994.

Besides, the 1993 African Footballer of the Year scored a remarkable eight goals in the AFCON qualifiers and scored five more goals in the tournament proper to be crowned the goal king of Tunisia 1994.

Oliseh yet again led the adulations for Yekini who scored the goals that helped Nigeria to her second AFCON title in Tunisia where the former Shooting Stars striker was the tournament’s top scorer with five goals.

“There is one particular incident I actually put in the book but I won’t elaborate on it here but it was the last intimate discussion I had with Rashidi Yekini before he died, it happened in my bedroom but that day he was not a happy, and I explained it in the book,” Oliseh said with breathy purr.

“Of course, we had so many talents in the group (Super Eagles) with exceptional midfielders like Jay-Jay, Mutiu Adepoju, great defenders and great strikers from the wing-like Amuneke and Daniel Amokachi but the person who really got the goals delivered was Yekini.

“He was always heavy on the defense of the opponent even though he didn’t score, giving them so many problems and I personally feel that people who had served their country and done things nobody has ever done are never forgotten.

“Where Holland are today (in football) is the work of Johan Cruyff, because he was the one that put down the template they are working on currently and I think that is what is very important for us to look at.

“Nigeria scored nine goals at the 1994 Nations Cup and I gave five of the passes that made us win it but if Yekini did not score the goals, the passes I gave him wouldn’t have been recorded as an assist.

“Yekini really helped me to become better than what I was and the only way to say thank you is at least gives a story of what he did and the bad thing people made him suffer for, I put it in the book.”

It was equally a song of praises for Yekini by Amuneke who incidentally succeeded him as the African Footballer of the Year in 1994: “I remember my first game against Sudan in Lagos and it was a privilege and great opportunity to play with Yekini and we can say that he’s resting now, but for those of us that had the privilege of sharing the dressing room with him, he’ll always remain in our minds and even if we don’t come out to talk about him most of the times, he was a legend and would always remain a legend.”

While Yekini’s was recognized for providing some of the goals that helped the Super Eagles made history, the late Super Eagles captain and coach, Stephen Keshi who opened the frontiers for European football experience, was hailed for his unmistakable leadership qualities despite playing minor role when Nigeria beat the rest of the continent in 1994.

“One of the things that stood us out in 1994 was the unity we had in the team apart from the quality of the talents and of course, the late Keshi was a rallying point for all of us,” Eguavoen, who was the stand-in captain for the non-playing Keshi at the Tunisia AFCON explained. “We worked hard in 1994 after spate of misses along the line when we lost to Cameroon in 1998 in Morocco, lost to Algeria in 1990 and we only won bronze at Senegal 1992.

But unity is one thing that stood out for that team in 1994 and I remembered a night before that final game (against Zambia), there was a serious quarrel between late Keshi and late Emeka Omeruah, who was then the chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA).

“He was not even fit to play and he said he wanted to leave and go back to his base but we insisted he was going nowhere, and I told him ‘we are going to win this cup for you’.

“But there was this phone call from Late Head of State Sani Abacha who spoke to every individual, what could be more motivating than that, unity stood out for us, always watching each other’s back and when it’s time for fun we had fun and do the business when it’s time for that, we didn’t mix business with pleasure.

“So, it was a mark of honour that I handed over the captain’s band to him to go and lift the cup on behalf of the team because he truly deserved it and I have no regrets whatsoever for doing that,” noted Eguavoen who is currently the Head of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Technical Department.

Yet the mercurial Okocha who was regarded as one of the best dribblers during his heyday, in his usual boisterous manner gave a rare insight on the magic of winning the AFCON in 1994 with tales on why goalkeeper Peter Rufai held tightly to the cup during the victory lap following the 2-1 final match victory against Zambia at the El Menzah Stadium in Tunis.

“For many of us who were new in the team, we never knew how difficult it was to win the Nation’s Cup,” the former Eintracht Frankfurt attacking midfielder who has since retired to managing his chains of business, noted matter-of-factly. “I remember after the final against Zambia, Peter Rufai virtually refused to give the trophy to anybody while we were parading and singing as he kept on saying ‘I have been waiting for so many years for this Cup’.

“We didn’t understand him because we all felt we worked for the victory and why would he (Rufai) want to hold firmly to the trophy?

“ But with time, I come to realize that it is not easy to win the AFCON and I then understand why Rufai nearly refused everybody from holding the trophy after we beat Zambia,” Okocha who was also part of the Atlanta 1996 Olympics soccer gold medal-winning team.

Yet it was the former tough-as-nail Gent and K.V Kortrijk defender, Eguavoen that further underlined the depth of the quality at the disposal of the Super Eagles class of 1994 that was voted the second most entertaining team behind eventual 1994 World Cup winner Brazil despite the infamous and agonizing 2-1 second round loss to Italy at the Mundial.



“The truth is that we had so much quality in the squad and I don’t know if Sunny (Oliseh) captured it in his book; and this happened in his early days and I could remember it was the match against Ghana and he was furious because he was not even dressed,” recalled Eguavoen who is fondly called Cerezo by admirers.

“I had to calm him down and told him ‘Sunny, your time will come’. But the truth is that we have so much respect for ourselves but if he wasn’t brought up well, he could have argued.

“But when he took over (the midfield role), there was no stopping him anymore because when it is your time, it is your time.

“Let me also say something about Jay-Jay here because he helped so much in improving my defensive qualities and that of Taribo West as we often played one-on-one against him because of his dribbling quality which was far more than many we played against; so I was able to improve my defensive qualities with Jay-Jay’s dribbling skills.”

Okocha equally took on the former Ajax winger Tijani Babangida who felt he was so good to have made the Tunisia 1994 and USA 1994 squad but for his stormy relationship with coach Westerhof.

I should have made the 1994 Nations Cup team because I was so hot in the Dutch Eredivisie,” Babangida volunteered. “Westerhof actually took me out to Holland but we later had some issues and that was the major reason Westerhof didn’t invite me for the Nations Cup and this is what also happened that I was left out of the squad for the World Cup.”

But Okocha quipped: “Baba, please you were not just good enough to be in that team in 1994 (general laughter).”

Meanwhile, it was not a laughing matters when the legends were put to task on their candid assessment of the coach Westerhof ‘s era that saw them winning the Tunisia 1994 AFCON en route to the USA 1994 World Cup and coach Bonfrere Jo’s era that saw Nigeria winning the soccer gold medal in Atlanta.

From Oliseh to Okocha; from Amuneke to Babangida; it was a ‘no go area while Eguavoen offered a middle course.

“Maybe we would have done better at the USA 1994 World Cup if we had some equally good players in the squad and maybe, Babangida would have been a better addition because we would have needed his speed against Italy when both Amuneke and Amokachi were injured,” noted Eguavoen who has managed a clutches of clubs as well as the Super Eagles since his retirement to coaching.

All said and done, the general consensus was that the current crop of players would need to do more to emulate and even surpass the achievements of their illustrious predecessors.

“I don’t think that this current generation is ambitious enough but they should try to be better than us,” Okocha said.

“In our generation, we had the hunger and burning desire to be better than our heroes.

“The foundation has been laid and we see that the NFF are doing their best but they should get more people that have done it before on board.

People that can look them in the face and tell them the truth, they should get such people involved. I know that some of our colleagues are already involved with Nigerian football but to be honest, we have to be honest so that we can face some of the difficulties facing our football,” noted the former PSG star.