Yakubu Aiyegbeni: 15 years after, fans still harass me on 2010 World Cup miss

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Former Super Eagles striker Yakubu Aiyegbeni has opened up that even 15 years after his infamous miss at the 2010 World Cup against Korea, Nigerian fans still bombard him for not putting away that sitter.

The miss was such that he was faced with an empty net with both goalkeeper and defender beaten inside the six-yard box, and that eliminated Nigeria from the 2010 World Cup.

“I still get messages from people, different people on that miss,” ‘The Yak’ said on a podcast.

“One asked how will I explain this miss to my daughter Kayla.

“I was like wow, 13, 14 years ago people still think about that.

“I got another message again that said I was the worst Super Eagles striker.”

‘The Yak’ said this hurts because the fans do not remember that he scored twice in Sudan for Nigeria to qualify for the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.

“We went to Sudan when nobody thought we would qualify for the World Cup because the weather there was crazy, the weather was so hot,” he recalled.

“A draw or a loss and we are out.

“I scored two, Julius Aghahowa and ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha also scored for us to win 4-0 and that got us the ticket to the World Cup.

“But Nigerians never speak about that and that I played 99.9% of these games to qualify Nigeria to the World Cup and I was still dropped (from going to the World Cup).”


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