Three minutes into the African Nations Cup final at the Stade El Menzah in Tunis on 10 April 1994, Elijah Litana rose to put Zambia ahead. Two minutes later Emmanuel Amuneke had levelled, and two minutes after the break he struck again. Nigeria won 2-1 in front of about 25,000 people, and the Super Eagles had a second continental crown, the first ever won away from home.

Clemens Westerhof's squad in Tunisia was the core that would light up USA 94. Here is who they were.

Five games at El Menzah

Tunisia only hosted because Zaire, the original hosts, dropped out, and the format was tight: twelve teams in four groups of three. Nigeria were drawn with Egypt and Gabon.

Yekini opened the account on 26 March. He scored twice against Gabon, either side of a Mutiu Adepoju goal, in a 3-0 win. A goalless draw with Egypt four days later was enough to go through, although the Pharaohs topped the group on goal difference.

Zaire went next, 2-0 in the quarter-final on 2 April. Yekini scored both, the second a penalty.

The semi-final against holders Ivory Coast on 6 April was the scare. Michel Bassolé scored twice in the first half hour, Ben Iroha answered in between, and Yekini made it 2-2 five minutes before the interval; nobody found a winner in 120 minutes, so it went to penalties. Samson Siasia missed, but Finidi George and Yekini were among the scorers as Nigeria went through 4-2, with the Ivorians failing twice.

Then came Zambia. Again, El Menzah.

The squad, and the men who carried it

The table below lists the 19 players who appeared in Tunisia, taken from the line-ups in the RSSSF tournament file. Wilfred Agbonavbare, Alloysius Agu and Edema Fuludu completed the 22 but did not play. Clubs are left out: the only list we found that gives them could not be checked against a primary record.

Yekini was the tournament's top scorer with five goals, and Amokachi started every match beside him. Keshi, the man whose name is tied to that era, played only twice. Eguavoen later told ThisDay why. “Keshi was injured just before the Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia.” Keshi wore the armband against Gabon and in the semi-final, and Eguavoen wore it in the final. The full story of the Big Boss is in our Stephen Keshi biography.

Amuneke's tournament was stranger still. One game. Two goals.

Zambia, a year after Gabon

Few finals have carried as much weight for the losing side. On 27 April 1993, the plane taking Zambia's squad to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal came down in the Atlantic shortly after leaving Libreville, killing everyone on board, among them 18 players. Kalusha Bwalya survived only because, as a Europe-based player, he had arranged to travel separately.

Less than a year later, under Ian Porterfield, a rebuilt Zambia thrashed Mali 4-0 in the other semi-final and went ahead in the final through Litana's header. Amuneke's quick reply turned the night.

Pelé was a guest of honour, and he consoled Zambia's players as they collected their silver medals, FARPost later reported. “We lost the match but just imagine being consoled by a great player like Pele,” defender Aggrey Chiyangi said.

Amuneke, for his part, never hid his frustration at the bench. “I must confess I was not really pleased that I was not featured in most of the matches of the Nations Cup in Tunisia,” he told ThisDay in 2016, adding that in the final he “was able to prove a point not only to the coach but to the watching world.”

The road to USA 94

The World Cup ticket was already in the bag. A 1-1 draw in Algiers on 8 October 1993 had sent Nigeria to their first World Cup, so the Nations Cup became a dress rehearsal.

It showed. In America the same players beat Bulgaria and Greece, lost 2-1 to Argentina and went out to Italy in extra time. We cover that summer in detail on our Nigeria 1994 World Cup squad page.

Our view

Tunisia 1994 tends to be filed as the warm-up act for America. That sells it short. Westerhof had been building since the 1990 final defeat in Algiers, and he won with his captain carrying an injury, with Amuneke left on the bench for four games, and after a semi-final that could easily have gone the other way. It was a squad deep enough to absorb all three problems, and that depth, more than any single star, is what made Westerhof's Nigeria so hard to beat that year.

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