Thirty two years after making history in these same United States, Ben Iroha is watching the 2026 World Cup from his Dallas living room, and what’s missing from his screen is the green and white.
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Former Super Eagles left-back Ben Iroha has spoken candidly about the emotional weight of watching the 2026 FIFA World Cup from Dallas, Texas, without Nigeria among the competing nations, as reported by FootballInNigeria.com.ng. Speaking from the American city he has called home since the tournament’s previous visit to the United States in 1994, Iroha described the Super Eagles’ absence as producing a noticeable gap in what he watches every day on his television screen.
The timing of his reflection carries particular weight. Iroha played left-back for Nigeria at USA ’94, the tournament that marked the Super Eagles’ debut on football’s biggest stage, and he has lived in Texas ever since. Watching the 2026 edition unfold in the same country without a Nigerian team to support has brought both nostalgia and disappointment in equal measure.
The Atmosphere of 1994 That No One Has Forgotten
Iroha spoke warmly about the scenes from that 1994 campaign, recalling how Mexican supporters and Black Americans had packed stadiums waving Nigeria’s green white green flag and created an atmosphere that felt almost like playing at home despite being thousands of miles from Lagos. That experience had such a profound impact on him that he told his wife immediately after the tournament that the United States was where they would build their life, a decision he has never regretted across the three decades since.
That same atmosphere, that distinctive Nigerian flavour in the stands, is what Iroha says he has been unable to find while watching the 2026 tournament. He acknowledged enjoying the games themselves while watching with his children at home in Dallas, but described the absence of the Super Eagles as a tangible void he has felt throughout the group stage.
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A Community That Was Ready and Then Left Without a Team
Iroha revealed that members of the Nigerian community in Dallas had made concrete plans to organise a support base for the Super Eagles during the tournament, only to see those arrangements evaporate once it became clear Nigeria would not qualify. That practical detail says something specific about how deeply the absence has been felt beyond just individual heartbreak an entire community had mobilised around an expectation that never materialised.
He also mentioned hoping to cross paths with former teammates who might be in America during the tournament, naming Austin Jay-Jay Okocha specifically as someone he expected might appear given the significance of the occasion. He had not yet managed to make contact, underscoring how much of the original network built around that historic 1994 squad has since dispersed across different corners of the world.
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1994 Had Bigger Stars, 2026 Has Better Football
When asked to compare the two tournaments, Iroha offered a nuanced take that resisted the temptation to simply dismiss the current edition in favour of nostalgia. He acknowledged that the 1994 World Cup featured a concentration of once in a-generation individual talents he named Diego Maradona, Hristo Stoichkov and Roberto Baggio specifically that gave that tournament a particular sense of occasion around specific personalities. His view was that the current edition, while perhaps less stacked with figures of that magnitude beyond Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, had delivered consistently high quality football across the matches played so far.
That balanced assessment from a man who lived both tournaments is a reminder that nostalgia and honest observation are not always in conflict. Iroha was not writing off the 2026 tournament for lacking the star power of the past. He was simply noting what is different, while acknowledging what is working.
Chelle Would Have Taken Us to This World Cup
Iroha was equally clear-eyed when asked about the qualifying failure that left Nigeria absent from the tournament he is watching. He acknowledged the pain of the missed qualification without deflecting it, but directed his criticism not at Chelle personally but at the federation’s timing in appointing him. His argument was that Nigeria had not shown enough seriousness from the outset of the qualifying campaign, and that the momentum Chelle later built with the team was evident enough to suggest the result might have been different had he been in charge from the start of the cycle rather than brought in midway through.
It is a point echoed by others within the Nigerian football community, and one that carries direct implications for how the federation approaches the 2030 World Cup qualifying cycle, which is now the next realistic target for a return to football’s biggest stage.
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📌 Did You Know?
- Ben Iroha was Nigeria’s first-choice left back at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, playing every minute of all four of the Super Eagles’ matches, including their Round of 16 defeat to Italy.
- Nigeria’s 3-0 win over Bulgaria at USA ’94, the match that announced the Super Eagles to a global audience, remains one of the most iconic results in the country’s football history.
- Iroha made the decision to settle in the United States permanently after the 1994 World Cup, one of several members of that squad who built lives in America following the tournament.
- Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, whom Iroha mentioned hoping to see during the 2026 tournament, scored one of the most memorable individual goals of USA ’94 when he dribbled past goalkeeper Thomas Ravelli of Sweden in a group stage match.
- Diego Maradona, whom Iroha cited as one of the defining star players of the 1994 World Cup, was controversially expelled from that tournament after testing positive for ephedrine following Argentina’s 6-1 win over Greece.
- Nigeria’s failure to qualify for both the 2022 and 2026 World Cups represents the country’s first back to back absence from the tournament since missing consecutive editions in the mid 1970s.
- The 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico is the first edition of the tournament to use a 48 team format, expanded from the 32 team structure used at the 1994 edition Iroha played in.
