Eagles Don’t Look so Super Now

Does George Weah know something the rest of us do not?

Has the FIFA world player of the year for 1995 got some inside information we have yet to uncover?

Possibly. Why else would the AC Milan and Liberia star go so far out on a limb, and in print yet?

“We can safely say that Nigeria is the best team in Africa today,” Weah wrote in the current issue of African Soccer magazine. “And what’s most worrying for the opposition is that they can’t even pick any single individual and say that he’s the one they need to mark or keep an eye on.

“You can take your pick from Daniel Amokachi, Taribo West, Nwankwo Kanu, Tijani Babangida, Sunday Oliseh or Finidi George, and they are all big players.

“Nigeria has the players to take on any team in the world on an equal basis. The Super Eagles can go all the way to the final.”

Or all the way back to Lagos with their tail feathers between their legs after the first round.

The 1996 Olympic gold medalists have run smack into a wall only days before they open play in the World Cup’s so-called “group of death.” Paired with Spain, Bulgaria and Paraguay, Nigeria was fully expected to advance to the second round and perhaps even improve on its strong 1994 showing.

Not any more.

Not after what happened in Zurich on May 19, when the Swiss first division team FC Grasshoppers crushed Nigeria, 4-0.

Not after what happened in Belgrade on May 29, when Yugoslavia routed Nigeria, 3-0.

Not after what happened in Amsterdam on Friday night, when the Netherlands destroyed Nigeria, 5-1.

What the Africans need now to restore their shattered morale is a miracle worker. Fortunately, they have one on hand.

Bora Milutinovic took Mexico to the quarterfinals in 1986, Costa Rica to the second round in 1990 and the United States to the second round in 1994. None of the three were expected to do as well.

But this time, against all odds, he has a more difficult miracle to perform. Ever since being tossed out as Mexico’s coach last November and then quickly being snapped up by Nigeria, Milutinovic has gloated about the talent at his disposal.

“This is the strongest national team I’ve ever had,” he said at one point. “The Nigerians are the best players I have worked with.”

Not one of the 22 player on Milutinovic’s roster plays in Nigeria. Twenty are in Europe, one is in South Africa and one, defender Uche Okafor of the Kansas City Wizards, is in the United States. Until recently, they all echoed their coach’s confidence.

“Reaching the second round shouldn’t be hard,” said striker Victor Ikpeba, Africa’s player of the year in 1997 and a star at AS Monaco in France.

A dozen players remain from the 1994 team that came within a whisker of reaching the quarterfinals. Nigeria shut out eventual fourth-place finisher Bulgaria, 3-0; lost, 2-1, to Argentina, after which Diego Maradona flunked his infamous drug test; and blanked Greece, 2-0.

In the second round, it held eventual runner-up Italy to a 1-1 tie in regulation, only to lose, 2-1, in overtime in a memorable match at Foxboro Stadium near Boston.

Blending the best of that team with the best of the gold medal-winning team of 1996 should have produced a formidable side, one perfectly capable of fulfilling Weah’s prediction and challenging for the France 98 title. Pundits have long suggested that Nigeria would be the first African winner of the World Cup.

But no matter how packed it is with individual talent, Nigeria continues to suffer self-destructive tendencies. The military government interferes with the soccer federation--banning it from competing in the African Nations Cup in South Africa in 1996, which in turn led to FIFA banning Nigeria from taking part in this year’s Nations Cup in Burkina Faso.

Then, too, there are the usual team factions and cliques and the usual squabbles about money and performances bonuses and so on. Milutinovic, to his credit, was smart enough to be paid up front. Any extra cash he earns now would be performance-based.

“The team spirit is more important than the money earned,” he said recently, knowing well that this team might be his last best chance of winning the World Cup.

But it all started to unravel a month ago, not long after Ike Shorunmu, the team’s then-likely first-choice goalkeeper, broke his hand while playing for FC Zurich on the final day of the Swiss season, ending his World Cup hopes.

Whether Milutinovic can pick up the pieces of a team in disarray and again work a miracle remains to be seen.

“If I did not think so, I would not have taken the job,” he said. But that was before the luck of the green ran out.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GROUP D

The Schedule

FRIDAY

Paraguay vs. Bulgaria, 8:30 a.m. (ESPN2, Ch. 34)

SATURDAY

Spain vs. Nigeria, 8:30 a.m. (ESPN2, Ch. 34)

JUNE 19

Nigeria vs. Bulgaria, 11:30 a.m. (ESPN2, Ch. 34)

Spain vs. Paraguay, 3 p.m. (ESPN, Ch. 34)

JUNE 24

Spain vs. Bulgaria, 3 p.m. (ESPN, Ch. 34)

Nigeria vs. Paraguay, 3 p.m. (ESPN2, Ch. 34*)

* Highlights