Despite the fame and fortune he supposedly made playing for the Super Eagles and Rayo Vallecano in the Spanish top-flight, it has emerged that the late Wilfred Agbonavbare died a porter at the Madrid Barajas airport.
The former New Nigeria Bank of Benin goalkeeper, died of cancer on Tuesday morning at a Spanish hospital. He was 48 years old.
He joined Rayo Vallecano in 1990 and retired at the end of the 1996 season.
His footballing career actually started at New Nigeria Bank and after a stint at Brentford FC in England, before crossing over to Rayo Vallecano. In 1996, he signed for Écija Balompie, where he stayed for a year.
Agbonavbare was an international for Nigeria, beginning with the Flying Eagles squad to the FIFA U-20 World Championship in Mexico and the Super Eagles team that won the African Cup of Nations in Tunisia 1994. In that same year, he also featured at the USA World Cup as Peter Rufai’s substitute. Their performance still ranks as Nigeria’s best at the World Cup, losing 2-1 to a Roberto Baggio-propelled Italian side in the seconds.
But despite all these heroics, the late Agbonavbare’s last official job in Spain, where he lived after retiring from playing football was at the Madrid Barajas airport, where he worked as a porter, to carry luggage and other loads. Despite being a hard job, the deceased had to take up this job as he had expended all his money on footing the bills of his wife, who was then suffering from breast cancer, but regrettably, she succumbed to the dreaded disease.
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