Olalekan Okusan
More than two decades after the shambolic outing of the Flying Eagles at the 1999 FIFA U-20 World Cup hosted by Nigeria, Eddy Dombraye has admitted that he was still being hunted by the woeful outing by the team.
Dombraye, prior to the 1999 tournament was a household name, especially with followers of the domestic league when he was one of the top scorers in the 1990s. His exploits resonated even further when he moved abroad to join Polish side LKS Lodz where he spent about four seasons.
Reminiscence on what transpired in 1999 under Dutch coach Thijs Libregts, Dombraye who was one of the 10 foreign-based that represented Nigeria in the tournament said as much in a live section with @the.way.show: “I think this was a team of stars made up of quality players but we were zero as a team but you cannot pin-point what went wrong with the team.
“Personally, I performed badly because a lot was expected from; when I joined the camp, everybody was happy that I would add something to the team.
“But I did not and we also took the first game for granted because of over-confidence as they were Costa Rica and that we could run over them easily and already thinking of Germany which was our second game.
“So Costa Rica shocked us with a goal that we had to fight back to draw the tie at 1-1. We won easily against Germany and even with this, we were lacking in confidence.”
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