TIJANI BABANGIDA: I Regret Not Winning Nations Cup With Super Eagles

Former Super Eagles winger, Tijani Babangida,  said that his greatest regret during his career in  the Super Eagles, was not having enough playing time and not winning the Nations Cup.

“If I had more chance to play at the Super Eagles, only God knows how many goals I would have scored,” he said on Saturday during a virtual interview with the Nigerian Super Eagles media outlet.

Babangida had  his career debut at the national team from the second division of the domestic league in 1994.

According to him,  not having enough playing time at the initial stage of his career at the National Team was one of the things he regretted.  He added that he always got less than 15 minutes to play in matches.

Tijani said that at each point he got the chance to play, he would always want to impress the world.

According to him,  in the game against Denmark where  he entered in the 73rd minute, he dribbled in the “last minute till I dribbled myself off the field,” and the final whistle was blown.

Nigeria was in 1996  banned by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), after the then Head of State, Sani Abacha, withdrew the Super Eagles from the African Nations Cup finals in South Africa because he had been criticised for  the killing of the Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and others. 

Consequently, the Nigeria team missed the following Nations Cup in Burkina Faso in 1998.

Babangida who is the current president of the National Association of Nigerian Professional Footballers (NANPF), said some of them were unable to lift the Nations Cup due to the two consecutive bans, adding that it was regrettable.

He said following the ban,  they could only play at club levels after the Olympics in 1996.

He however explained that the ban played a huge role in   their winning of the gold medal at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics football event.

He said “we were determined to win the Olympics,” knowing it was our only chance to play at the national team level following the ban by CAF.