Will Eagles Soar or Crash? ‘Let’s Do It Again’ mantra will fail with Nigeria’s AFCON legacy
The odysseys of the Super Eagles of Nigeria have had some frails and trails spells at Africa’s biggest football showpiece, the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) since 1963.
The West African heavyweights uniquely positioned themselves as serial winners but with only three titles in their coffers out of a possible 33.
In all, Africa’s sixth-ranked team has the highest number of medals (15) in the annals of the tournament.
The Super Eagles bagged 137 goals (third-highest goals scored by a national side, behind Egypt and Côte d’Ivoire) in 97 AFCON games – 1.41 goal average per match.
The Super Eagles secured 53 wins, with 22 draws and losses.
They are the national team with the highest third-place positions (8) in the entire history of the event; they are only runners-up three times (1990, 1988, and 2000).
The first AFCON meeting of the Super Eagles encountered their heaviest defeat against the then United Arab Republic (UAR)—Egypt. The Green Eagles, as Nigeria was called then, were trounced 6-3, and they became the first and only country to have conceded two hat-tricks in the same match, with Mohamed Morsi Hussein and Hassan El-Shazly putting three goals each past them.
Their encounter with Sudan was another nightmare, as they conceded four goals without a reply.
In 1976, they grabbed a podium finish as distant third in Morocco, and the 1978 edition of the African event came with the same story in Ghana, with another third-place finish with their first two West Africans coming against Ghana and Burkina Faso.
Nigeria had a top finish with 8 goals, the least number of goals to become winners when they were grouped with Egypt, Ivory Coast and Tanzania in the 1980 edition of the AFCON and failed to advance through the preliminaries against Zambia, Algeria, and Ethiopia, in 1982.
The 1984 edition ushered in a new epoch, the very first time an indigenous coach steered the affairs of the then Green Eagles, Festus Onigbinde, bringing an influx of relatively young local players such as Rashidi Yekini from Shooting Stars, Stephen Keshi, Henry Nwosu, and Sunday Eboigbe from New Nigeria Bank and Peter Rufai from Stationery Stores.
In tandem, from this edition until the 1990 edition, Nigeria were runners-up, having suffered defeats from Cameroon and Algeria.
In 1992, the West Africans trod their familiar third-place finishing path for the third time under The Netherlands’ Clemens Westerhof, meeting their bus stop against Ghana as a lone goal from Mutiu Adepoju was not enough to advance them to the final.
The squad was rampant with foreign-based players from Spain, Portugal, and The Netherlands, with only a wisp of local-based players.
Now with Vitória de Setúbal, Yekini scored four goals to become the highest goalscorer of that edition.
Two years later, Emmanuel Amuneke’s brace against the Chipolopolo of Zambia was sufficient for the Super Eagles to lift the second AFCON trophy in 1994 in Tunisia, with the second-fewest number of goals (9).
Yekini, again, won the top scorer award, becoming the second player to achieve the feat, and also added the tournament’s best player award to his list of accolades.
The late forward became the country’s all-time AFCON scorer with 13 goals from four outings in a row (1988, 1990, 1992, and 1994).
For the 1996 AFCON hosted by South Africa, Nigeria officially withdrew before the final tournament under pressure from then-dictator Sani Abacha on the grounds of insufficient safety guarantees for the team in South Africa, which has strongly criticised Nigeria since minority rights activists were hanged.
Resultantly, they were banned by CAF from entering the 1998 AFCON qualifying, and they came back to co-host the 2000 edition with Ghana but were runners-up, defeated by Cameroon through penalty shootouts in front of over 60,000 fans in Lagos.
Even though their hopes were dashed, they surpassed their national goal record in AFCON by scoring 12 goals in the six games they played. One more than what was scored in 1976.
In assonance, the team’s 2002 campaign in Mali, with Shaibu Amodu becoming the second indigenous coach at the helm of affairs, ended like the previous editions, with a third-place finish.
The Super Eagles thought they’d had some glimmers of hope against Senegal in the semi-final when Julius Aghahowa cancelled out Bouba Diop’s goal, only for Salif Diao to stab their heart with a 97th-minute goal in extra time.
They defeated host, Mali 1-0 in front of their home fans in the loser’s final, and it was the same old story in 2004, losing in the semi-final before beating Mali again in the loser’s final for a third-place finish.
They kicked off the 2006 AFCON in fine form with three consecutive wins against Ghana, Zimbabwe and Senegal.
Obafemi Martins’ 88th-minute goal against the Teranga Lions in the group stages was the country’s 100th AFCON goal.
Avenging their 5-3 penalty loss to Tunisia in the last edition, they won the spot kick 6-5 this time around and moved to the semi-final just for Didier Drogba to send them packing, settling for the bronze medal for the sixth time since 1963.
The 2008 campaign was yet another horrendous moment in their AFCON history, while in 2010, they were placed third in the tournament after being eliminated by Ghana in the semi-finals.
Nigeria’s poor run of results continued in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where they finished bottom of their group and the then President, Goodluck Jonathan, punished the team for a poor campaign by imposing a two-year ban from international competition.
This would have resulted in Nigeria missing out on both the qualifying phase and the finals of the 2012 African Cup of Nations, but the government dropped the ban a month later after FIFA threatened to impose harsher international sanctions as a result of the government interference.
Nigeria competed in qualifying for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations as scheduled but then failed to qualify after ending the qualifiers with a 2–2 draw against Guinea with goals from Ikechukwu Uche and Victor Obinna.
The heartbreak was short-lived, as CAF switched AFCON to odd-numbered years instead of even-numbered years so that it does not clash with the FIFA World Cup.
The 2013 edition, there, was meant to come just a year apart and qualifiers started simultaneously with the 2012 AFCON in January 2012.
Against all odds, the Super Eagles emerged as champions in South Africa after seeing off Côte d’Ivoire in quarter-final, Mali in semi-final and Burkina Faso in final courtesy of a 40th minute goal from Rangers International midfielder, Sunday Mba.
Stephen Keshi, who was the fourth indigenous coach that led the national side in 2013, achieved the huge feat of becoming the second African to lift the title as a player and as a coach after Egypt’s Mahmoud El-Gohary in the history of the tournament.
However, they did not qualify for either of the next two tournaments in 2015 and 2017.
Gernort Rohr, the second German to lead the side to AFCON after Berti Vogts in 2008, led a youthful squad to the 2019 AFCON, and they started their campaign at the by defeating Burundi 1–0 in group B opening match.
They went on to defeat Guinea and lost 2–0 to Madagascar in their final group stage match. The round of 16 saw them defeating Cameroon 3–2 with goals coming from Jude Ighalo and Iwobi, they later went on to confront South Africa in the quarter-finals of the tournament.
An 89th-minute header from Troost-Ekong gave them the lead over South Africa and the match ended 2–1 in their favour. They faced Algeria in the semi-finals and were knocked out of the tournament after a 95th-minute free kick from Riyad Mahrez gave Algeria the lead.
The Super Eagles later faced Tunisia in a third place match which they won 1–0 with the only goal coming from Ighalo which made him the top scorer of the tournament and they bagged and historic eighth third-place finish.
In the 2021 AFCON, played in 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria was the only team in the tournament to win all three group stage matches after defeating Egypt 1–0, Sudan 3–1, and Guinea-Bissau 2–0 to earn the famous title of “group stage champions” which later became infamous as they disappointedly lost 1–0 in the round of 16 to Tunisia.
The Super Eagles are going into their 20th AFCON campaign in Abidjan, the Côte d’Ivoire metropolis, as the sixth favourites to lift the trophy per Opta.
They scored 22 goals in six games during qualifying for the 2023 AFCON, the highest tally among the 24 teams at this year’s tournament. 10 of those goals came from Victor Osimhen, that’s twice as many as any other player (4 players on 5 goals).
With Côte d’Ivoire hosting for the second time, Nigeria were beaten finalists the last time AFCON was held in this country, they lost 3-1 against Cameroon in 1984.
With ‘Let’s Do It Again’ as their tournament theme, the team aims to reflect the hunger of a nation eager for continental glory after over a decade of waiting for another title. However, data puts uncertainty about the specific objective—whether it’s winning the title, experiencing a repeat of the last final loss in Côte d’Ivoire, facing an early exit in the round of 16 as in the last edition, or settling for the familiar third-place finish.
