USA 94: Why We Could Not Celebrate Goal with Rashidi Yekini —Mutiu Adepoju

Ololade Adeyanju/

Former Super Eagles midfielder, Mutiu Adepoju, has revealed why it appeared that teammates did not celebrate with the goal king, late Rashidi Yekini, after scoring Nigeria’s first ever World Cup goal at USA 94 tournament.

Adepoju, who is popularly known as ‘headmaster’ during his playing days, made the revelation at the reunion dinner of Ex-University of Ibadan Footballers (EXUIFA), held at the institution’s campus on Saturday.

While featuring in a Q&A session during the dinner, Adepoju also faulted the popular belief that there was a conspiracy against the late Yekini in the Super Eagles USA 94 World Cup squad.

“Although, I was very young at the time and might have not been fully aware of everything happening in camp, I can say categorically
that there was no time anyone called all of us together to plan anything against Rashidi Yekini. Of course, as in every other team, there were caucuses in our team. But I am not aware of any grand conspiracy against any particular player,” Adepoju stated.

He also said the momentum from scoring the goal, which apparently propelled Yekini into the opposition’s net, prevented other players from joining him immediately to celebrate the historic goal.

Besides, he said the fewer cameras being used to record matches at the time might have also made it impossible for viewers to see the clips of where other players later joined him to celebrate the goal.

“In any case, I was not on the pitch during that particular match. I was on the reserve bench. So, there was no way I could have ran into the pitch to celebrate with him immediately after he scored,” he added.

Adepoju, who played for the UI team, while studying for a diploma certificate between 1986 and 88, further disclosed how he realised that he had special skills with his head after his friends nicknamed him “coconut head”, while playing football as a child.

He said he later worked on himself and ultimately mastered the skill of using his head to score goals.

“While growing up at the Cocoa Research Institute in Ibadan, I was nicknamed ‘coconut head’ by my friends with whom I played football because of my extraordinary ability in using my head. Later in my football career, I decided to work very hard in mastering the skill of scoring goals with my head. This later earned me the nickname of ‘headmaster’, by which I am now known everywhere,” he said.

He described his goal against Spain at the 1998 World Cup in France as the best of his career.

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