Enugu II wrote:
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There is no disputing the pedigree of Nigeria's 1994 national team that was ranked No.5 in the world, won the Cup for African Nations (AFCON), and reached the last 16 at the World Cup. Clearly, no Nigerian team has come close before and since then. Although, there are those who may argue that the 2013 team comes close but certainly not in the minds of a great number of Nigerian teams that witnessed that 1994 team.
But having stated the above, it is arguable whether that 1994 team can be classified as Africa's best squad ever in spite of its lofty No. 5 ranking back then. Some may well argue that the team's failure to overcome Italy at the 1994 World Cup forever condemns the team to a place in the rankings behind the three African teams that have ventured to the last 8 of a World Cup. But should statistics and records be the deciding factors on this issue of Africa's best? Well, lets take a look.
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Individual accolades obtained by individual players of players who were starters or fringe in those squads can also tell the story of the strength of the squads. The 1994 Nigerian squad produced, significantly, more players that received such accolades when compared to Cameroon 1990, Senegal 2002, and Ghana 2010 squads. Table 1 below provides the distribution of those accolades. This indicates the strength in depth of the Nigerian squad and how it was sustained several years after 1994.
Details can be found below with stats:
https://eaglecity.blogspot.com/2019/08/1994-nigeria-africas-best-or.htmlEII, I do not judge the quality of teams solely on the basis of statistics because statistics can be very misleading.
Case in point is the 1990 Cameroon team which got to the quarterfinals of the World Cup but was really mediocre in many of their games during that World Cup; they did let in 6 goals against Russia, remember? In fact, without Roga Milla, a last minute addition to the team, they wouldn’t have gotten out of the group.
Back to Nigeria 1994, I saw 3 of the 4 games they played at the World Cup and I can tell you for a fact that both of their losses were, unequivocally, courtesy of the referees. I can also tell you with the utmost certainty that if Nigeria had held on against Italy, they would have played in the final match of that World Cup. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the Nigerian World Cup team of 1994 is the absolute best team Africa has ever sent to a World Cup. You can take that to the bank
Cheers.
Oga, you are mixing events of 1990 and 1994.