Former Super Eagles captain, Sunday Oliseh, has made a startling revelation on why the team failed to win the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Recall that Nigeria crashed out in the round of 16 after losing 2-1 to Italy. The team had topped its group that consists of Argentina, Bulgaria, and Greece.
However, Oliseh in an interview with FIFA.com noted that the Super Eagles had the ingredients to go beyond the round of 16 but that “the overall circumstances weren’t in our favour”.
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“I still think we had the potential to win that year.
“All the ingredients were there, but the overall circumstances weren’t in our favour.
“At any rate, it had nothing to do with our squad, which had the talent to go all the way,” Oliseh told FIFA website.
9 Comments
This article is such a useless one. CSN if you don’t have news why not keep quiet, Oliseh said nothing in the write up to explain the headline caption
I thought I was the only one seeing this, nonsense journalism!
It’s no true for now, a check through on http://www.sofifa.com still showed the duo listed as English players
I used to believe that Nigeria could have won it in 1994. But I now have a contrary opinion. They were a good squad, no doubt one of the strongest squads to come out of Africa to date. But I feel the factors that led them to lose a game they had no business losing to Italy, those same factors would have prevented them eventually from progressing to the final. And those factors are:
1) Poor game management.
2) Naivety – naive defending, wastefulness in front of goal, wastefulness with possession.
3) Lack of belief – if they believed, Italy had no business winning that game. They lost partly because in their minds, they just couldn’t see themselves progressing to the next round at Italy’s expense. And if you can’t see it in your mind, you usually can’t accomplish it.
The Yekini issue is also there. That is, the unproven allegation that certain players refused to cooperate with Yekini during games. I will ignore this since it is unproven, but if true, one can only imagine how damaging it was to the entire team for the team’s main striker to be starved of supply by his own team mates!
And if by some incredible good fortune, they managed to make it to the final, it’s tough for a team with all these issues to win a world cup final.
The 1994 set had some of the best individual players to ever come out of Africa. But they were JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH as a team.
yea true [email protected] is bitter, but the painful result is there for the taking in football history.
I seldom agree with Oliseh but on this occasion, I concur that ‘circumstances’ weren’t in their favour in 1994.
We should never have met Italy in the second round. The Italians are a powerhouse in football and meeting them at that stage was cruel.
Had Amokachi not scored the second goal against Greece in our last group match, we would have met Mexico or (better still) Romania. Romania in 1994 was a formidable outfit though.
Still, there is no way on this planet either team would have won the Super Eagles of 1994. Italy started slowly and came 3rd in their group while we came first in ours.
Normally, a ‘powerful’ team that topped their group would normally play a ‘weak’ team that came 3rd or 2nd in another group.
Our Christmas present for coming 1st in our group was to play former world champions Italy! Haba!
That was a horrible set of circumstances that led to Italy coming 3rd in their group behind Republic of Ireland and Mexico (neither of whom have never won the World Cup).
Mexico were eliminated at the second round anyway. Romania made it to the quarter finals.
It was terrible luck for us to have met Italy at that stage.
I watched the match again and Italy (despite going a man down when Zola was unfairly sent off) did enough to have won that match.
Nigeria did not show enough adventure and had hoped to sit on that 1 goal lead. Porous and rash defending were our undoing.
Football is not played on permutation. I bet you would say they would have defeated Brazil too? To be the champion in any tournament you should be prepared to meet and beat anyone at any stage of the tournament. Yes, Nigeria played beautiful football in 1994 the only times they met any formidable opponents Argentina and Italy they lost. So what does that tell you? The best teams went all the way: Sweden, Italy, Brazil, Bulgaria. Best teams: Brazil as champions, Italy as runners up, Sweden third place. Makes sense? Nigeria went out at their level. I don’t expect you to agree though.
I’m always disappointed when I logon to this website because of the trash that are always published here as news.
How in hell did he explain why they did not win 1994 world cup when they did not even make it to the quarterfinals?
What were the circumstances that was not on their favor?
I’m always disappointed when I logon to this website because of the trash that are always published here as news.
How in hell did he explain why they did not win 1994 world cup when they did not even make it to the quarterfinals? You have first be in the finals to win it right!!
What were the circumstances that was not in their favor?