Nigeria's World Cup hopes crashed and burned in dramatic fashion in Rabat on Sunday, after missed penalty kicks saw them eliminated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, leaving more questions than answers.
After another 120 minutes of football failed to produce a winner and the score 1-1, the teams went to a shootout where Semi Ajayi missed his shot, and Nigeria missed their chance to reach the FIFA World Cup for a second tournament in a row.
Nigeria coach Eric Sekou Chelle, who later accused the DRC coaches of voodoo, had made two changes to the side that beat Gabon in the playoff semifinals on Thursday, bringing in Ajayi and Frank Onyeka for Bright Osayi-Samuel and Akor Adams.
The switch paid early dividends as Onyeka gave the Super Eagles the lead within the opening three minutes. And the Super Eagles looked imperious for the next 29 minutes, moving the ball, attacking, and creating opportunities.
Most notably, Ademola Lookman almost found Wilfred Ndidi and Alex Iwobi with on a cutback, but both players ran into each other and the chance was lost.
Just past the half hour mark, Iwobi gave away the ball in midfield, Calvin Bassey went walkabout and an off balance Ndidi diverted a cross into the path of Mechak Elia for the equalising goal.
From that point on, it was one way traffic, as the flagging Super Eagles were run ragged by the more fluid Congolese. They almost won it at the death but Stanley Nwabali pulled off a remarkable save with the very last touch of the ball.
Extra time produced no goals and the DRC won it on penalty kicks after Hull's Ajayi missed his kick and Chancel Mbemba buried his.
That kick signalled the end of the road for Nigeria's World Cup hopes, and the Super Eagles are now left to rue what might have been after a bungled World Cup campaign that should have been their easiest ever.
Missing a second World Cup on the spin is unacceptable for a country like Nigeria, and there will be wider ramifications, but we will get to that in a bit.
Osimhen hamstring injury proves costly
Most of Nigeria's worst results during these qualifiers came when Victor Osimhen had been unavailable. And the best results have come when he has played. That scenario played out again on Sunday night, a microcosm of their campaign.
With Osimhen on the field, the Super Eagles went ahead and were looking good, and could have scored a second. Even when the Congolese pulled level, Nigeria remained a threat with the forward on.
But once he failed to return for the second half, plagued with a hamstring injury, the stuffing appeared to have been knocked out of the Nigerians, leaving them bereft of both ideas and desire.
They offered nothing in attack and seemed content to just react to whatever the Leopards threw at them, and were fortunate not to lose in regulation time.
For a country like Nigeria to be so dependent on one player is not just embarrassing, but reflects the overall rot that has eaten into the country's game.
A wasted generation
Two consecutive World Cup tournament misses, including a 48-team tournament that should have been a formality for them? There is no guarantee that they make the next one in 2030, either.
Only four players in the current 24-man squad were at the last tournament they attended, in 2018 in Russia: William Troost-Ekong, Wilfred Ndidi, Alex Iwobi and Chidozie Awaziem.
Of the remainder, just one, youngster Benjamin Fredricks, will be below the age of 25 by the next World Cup. The rest would either be the wrong side of 30, or close to it.
That is a whole generation of players who would never see action at a World Cup tournament, including Osimhen. The forward will be 30 by then and unless he has the freakish staying power of Cristiano Ronaldo, he's unlikely to be in the same prime form when the 2030 tournament rolls around. And that is assuming the Super Eagles qualify for it. With his injury history, that makes it even less likely.
Sad as it may be to admit, with their record, this is not a generation that will be particularly missed. One AFCON Final, one AFCON bronze medal, and no World Cup qualification despite what appears to be a talented squad, is a terrible look by any standards.
After the Nations Cup, it should be time for the many of the squad to start thinking of international retirement.
Where is the next generation coming from?
Even if most of the current crop retire or the officials choose to clean house, where would the replacements come from? For all of Nigeria's boasting about having talent all over the world, quality has now become in short supply.
For the last decade, Nigeria's youth development system, which used to be among the best in the world, has been gradually facing death by asphyxiation. No funding, lack of structure, no defined pathways for talent identification and success.
The results have been evident, in their failure to qualify for multiple World Cup tournaments by the under 17 and under 20 teams.
And when they have qualified, like the last under 20 World Cup, such has been the politicisation of selection that the team have looked nowhere near the likes of the great teams of the past, and few of those teens have made the progression to senior level.
The sad truth, again, is that Nigeria's issues go beyond failure to qualify for one World Cup, or two. Those are just symptoms of much deeper issues, and until those are addressed decisively, there will likely be more of the same conversations taking place in four years.
Changes needed in the NFF
While on field issues are a problem, by far the biggest problems with Nigerian football are on the administrative side.
A player boycott over unpaid bonuses just before these playoffs was again symptomatic of the deep-lying issues simmering below the surface. Some reports suggest players were being owed bonuses going all the way back to 2019, but officials told ESPN that those outstanding bonuses were paid earlier in the year, still begging the question of why that should even be a conversation in the first place.
Former coaches Gernot Rohr and Jose Peseiro were owed salaries and bonuses for months. And coaches of the youth teams are not salaried, and still barely paid their allowances, leaving room for discontent.
Part of the reason stems from the inability of the NFF to raise funds outside of their government allocations, which is almost never ever enough as corporates do not seem to trust the federation enough with their money.
A reform document presented to the former sports minister recommended wide-ranging changes in the administration of the game in the country, including expanding the NFF Congress and opening eligibility for outside candidates to run for president of the body just like FIFA, as opposed to the current closed system.
That document has been binned, but perhaps this will be the opportunity to dust it off and start that process.
Unfortunately, it is not certain that will be the case. When the Super Eagles failed to qualify for the 2006 tournament, it led to a bitter upheaval in the NFA, as it was called at the time, with then Chairman Ibrahim Galadima ousted by a group of young Turks led by Amaju Pinnick. Change was expected, but change never came.
Between then and now, things have only regressed further, and for all of the questions that will arise after this latest round of soul-searing disappointment, the one answer that may remain clear is that the more things change, the more they will stay the same.