Yakubu’s Unforgettable Goal Miss Echoes 9 Years After

By Dike Ekene

The 2010 world cup in South Africa was an entertaining, thrilling, fascinating and controversial tournament. It was filled with amazing goals, shameful blunders, referee errors, wonderful style of play, heartbreak, happiness. There was always something to talk about. South Africa deserve some accolades for hosting soccer’s biggest tournament on African soil successfully.

Bafana Bafana’s Siphiwe Tshabalala opened the goalscoring in a spectacular way. That goal gave everyone goose bumps and the celebration that followed it was really massive. The South African team showcased the Zulu dance to the world.

However, Nigeria which was known as the giant of African football failed to live up to expectations. Nigeria was drawn alongside Argentina under the tutelage of Diego Maradona and supported by Lionel Messi the world’s best player; that was enough to frighten any team.

The first game was lost narrowly to the South American giants as expected. A Gabriel Heinze header in the first half was enough to separate the boys from the men.

The second match against Greece was going on smoothly when Kalu Uche gave Super Eagles the lead from a free kick, until Sani Kaita decided to spoil the show when he lost concentration and earned himself a deserved red card.

It was Greece’s turn to show their superiority and they eventually won the encounter 2-1. There were some good things to take away from the game. Vincent Enyeama who was really impressive in the previous game against Argentina replicated the same performance against Greece. Despite the two losses, he stood out.

The last game against South Korea was a must win game if Nigeria wanted to qualify for the next round. There was pressure in the Nigeria camp and the whole nation was expectant.

There had to be a leader, a creator, a match winning player, a charismatic personality, a winning mentality, someone to boost the low morale of the team. Kanu Nwankwo came into the starting line up to lead the attack alongside Yakubu Aiyegbeni.

Nigeria took the lead through a venomous strike from Kalu Uche. The Asians didn’t come to lose the game or settle for a draw. They replied with two mind blowing free kicks. Once again, the ship of the super eagles was capsizing and a saviour was imperative at this point.

Nevertheless, the biggest moment of the world cup ensued when Yakubu Aiyegbeni unexpectedly, unexplainably, unfortunately, ironically and complacently missed an open goal from just three meters. That miss silenced the whole of the Moses Mabhida stadium. A striker who was know for his goalscoring prowess and accuracy in the English premier league was guilty of such a massive footballing disaster. He scored a penalty in the 69th minute to redeem himself.

Consequently, Nigeria crashed out in the group stage. Maybe if he scored that goal, the team would have advanced and just maybe went on to win the world cup. In football anything can happen. It’s been Nine years since the incident, yet football-loving Nigerians haven’t forgotten about it. That miss has left a scar and that is what he is actually remembered for. On the streets, when people are playing football and miss such easy chances, they are tagged as Yakubus.

Albeit, he is Nigeria’s third highest goalscoring player. Hero or villian?. The question mark remains there until another player can do something more terrible than what he did.

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