Garba Lawal: How Eagles disobeyed coach to beat Spain at ’98 World Cup

Garba Lawal, the former Super Eagles player, has revealed how the team went against the instructions of Bora Milutinović, the head coach, to beat Spain in the France 1998 World Cup.

Lawal spoke in a recent chat with the Special Delivery podcast hosted by Emmanuel Babayaro, ex-Eagles goalkeeper, and Matthew Edafe.

The 48-year-old was part of the Eagles team who played at the 1998 world, which was Nigeria’s second mundial appearance.

He played for 90 minutes in the team’s first match of the competition against Spain at the Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes.

Eagles won 3-2 courtesy of a strike from Mutiu Adepoju, Andoni Zubizarreta’s own goal, and a piledriver from Sunday Oliseh.

Nigeria eventually finished top of the group and proceeded to the second round where they were beaten 4-1 by Denmark.

Speaking on the competition’s opening game, Garba said the team had to renege against the instructions given by Milutinović in order to beat Spain.

He added that the Serbian tactician had wanted the team to play 4-5-1 but they opted for a 4-4-2 formation on the field.

“The coach had said we have to play 4-5-1 but we knew that was not our traditional pattern, some we change the system on the field,” Lawal said.

“We said Jay Jay [Okocha] has to be close to Victor [Ikpeba] and we’ll play four in the midfield and did 4-4-2. We were looking for success. We ran everywhere.”