Emmanuel Amuneke has expressed disappointment with his penalty miss that cost Nigeria a bronze medal at the 1995 Fifa Confederations Cup in Saudi Arabia.
Mexico held Super Eagles to a 1-1 draw at the end of regular time in the third place game, the forward’s miss during the penalty shoot-out cost Nigeria a third place finish.
The former Nigeria U20 coach recalled the memories at the King Fahd International Stadium after Daniel Amokachi, Austin Eguavoen, Ben Iroha, Mutiu Adepoju had all scored their penalties, only for him to miss the last kick.
Amuneke praised the group of talents in the Nigeria team as a golden generation because of the intense fight for playing time.
“I’m like any other player; I’d like the game to end during the 90 minutes. I felt bad about it, but you can’t predict penalties.” Amuneke told FIFA.com
“Sometimes a team, a generation, just comes out of the blue. This was our golden generation.
“We had great players who couldn’t even get in the team because the competition for places was so fierce.”
He also paid tribute to the ‘great’ Dream Team following their triumph in the 1996 Olympics men football event.
“We didn’t go there expecting to win gold, but as the tournament went on we grew in confidence,” he continued.
“We had Kanu, Okocha, Amokachi, Ikpeba. We’re talking about Taribo West and Uche Okechukwu. There’s too many greats to even name!
“You have to accept the way you lose just like you accept the way you win.”
