The Miracle of Dammam also known as The Dammam Miracle was the name given to the result of a quarter-final football match between the Nigerian U-20 football team and the USSR U-20 football team at the 1989 FIFA World Youth Championship in Saudi Arabia which the Nigerian U-20 team went on to win on penalties. The match created a footballing record as Nigeria became the first team to come back from four goals down.
Regarded as one of the greatest comeback in world football history, the Flying Eagles of Nigeria has already gone down by 0 – 2 at half time and few minutes into the second half, Oleg Selenko added 2 more goals for USSR. It seems all was over and spectators started leaving the stadium to quickly attend the next big game in Jeddah: Argentina v Brazil.
But in the space of 30 minutes, the tide changed, Christopher Ohenhen started the comeback with two successive goals – An astunning free kick in 61 minutes and another goal at 75 minutes. At 83 minutes Samuel Elijah struck his own goal and just after 5minutes Nduka Ugbade, the captain of Nigerian team completed the 4 – 4 equalizer and took the match into extra time.
The Russians were stunned, when Nigeria triumphed 5 – 3 in the penalty shootout.
Indeed, not many saw the miracle. Some people had to run back to the stadium or a nearby TV set to see the greatest comeback ever as the whole of Nigeria went wild.