How Far Can Chukwu's Eagles Fly?

(From This Day (Nigeria) - AAGM)

Byline: Tunde Sulaiman

After three weeks of anxiety coach Christian Chukwu on Wednesday finally released the list of 22 players with whom he hopes to repeat the glorious feat of 10 years ago.

Then as an assistant coach to a foreign technical adviser Clemens Westerhof, he was by the Dutchman's side as the Eagles defied all the odds in Tunisia to win their second Nations Cup title beating Zambia in the final considered by many as one of the most exciting in the history of the competition.

On paper though the 'Class of '94' were deserved winners of the diadem, after all they were household names in the continent. Names like Daniel 'the Bull' Amokachi, Uche Okechukwu, Stephen Keshi, Austin 'Jay Jay' Okocha, Peter Rufai and Austin Eguavoen to mention but a few.

They were all battle hardened Nations Cup veterans with many of them part of the Eagles that reached the final of Algiers'90 and semi-finals two years later. Some like Keshi and Rufai were even in the team beaten by Cameroon in the final of Maroc'88 and so all had acquired the necessary 'big game' experience required for competitions of such magnitude.

Of course the build up in the same Faro, Portugal was much better with all the players in camp at least two full weeks before Tunisia'94 kicked off.

Chukwu has, however, not had the luxury of training with his full compliment of players ahead of the tournament but after spending three weeks in Faro …