Traveling Eagles of Nigeria Create Football Heritage at Saudi Arabia 1989

At the 1989 Environment Youth Championship held in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria picked the Silver medal, soon after defeating USSR in the most pulsating semi last matches ever played in the record of the FIFA U-20 championship.

The Traveling Eagles initially recreation was against the host Place, and they defeated Saudi Arabia 2-1 with Midfielder Mutiu Adepoju and Striker Christopher Ohenhen finding the two vital targets for Nigeria. The next match was in opposition to Portugal, and it went versus the expectation of the Coach Tunde Disu led Boys, who obtained whacked 1- by a potent Portuguese team. The Traveling Eagles were nevertheless ready to safe a quarterfinal ticket following securing a 1-1 draw against Czechoslovakia in their closing team match. Christopher Ohenhen as soon as again rescued a place for Nigeria by scoring the decisive equalizer in the 72nd minutes of engage in.

The quarterfinal activity observed the Traveling Eagles been paired with USSR.

The game was played in Dammam, and was later on re-named “the miracle of Dammam”.

This was a sport that saw Nigeria trailing by 4- with few minutes to the conclusion of the decisive quarterfinal match. Famous Oleg Salenko of USSR was among the the scorers in that unforgettable match. In the house of 30 minutes, Nigeria fought again to equalize 4-4 and take the match into penalty shoot-out. The comeback was begun by star player- Christopher Ohenhen who scored a brace in the 61st and 75th minutes to provide scores to 4-2 with 15 minutes of perform left in regulation time. Samuel Elijah, who was later nicknamed “Prophet” Samuel Elijah scored in the 83rd minutes of participate in lower the tally to 4-3, right before inspirational captain Nduka Ugbade came from nowhere to stage score 4-4 with an extraordinary equalizer in the 84th minutes. The Russians were shocked over and above their creativeness. The match had to go into penalties following the expiration of 90 minutes, and the Nigerians triumph 5-3, following Mirdjalal Kasimov missed his location kick to convey the activity to an anti climax. It was the biggest occur back in the history of globe football till day.

In the semi finals, the Flying Eagles narrowly defeated Usa 2-1 following the game had to go into another extra time with the video games tied at 1-1 in regulation time. Mutiu Adepoju who later on turned an integral element of the Super Eagles of Nigeria scored both aims that eradicated Usa from the tournament. In goal for United states on that unforgettable day, was goalkeeper Kasey Keller who afterwards grew to become a domestic title in earth soccer.

It was a drained on the lookout Flying Eagles staff that certified for the Closing of the 1989 FIFA Globe Youth Championship, just after enjoying two successive online games that went into penalty shoot-out. This was to establish decisive, as the Flying Eagles were defeated 2- by Portugal, who had before beaten them 1- at the group stage.