A few minutes after the final whistle, after Angel di Maria's goal on the hour had secured the 2008 Olympic gold medal for Argentina, the Nigeria players were all smiles, play-biting their silver medals and taking pictures with Maradona.
No tears were being shed at the Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing. No petulant yanking of the losers' medal off the neck as soon as they received them. Instead, the players were happy to strut around the grounds, cavorting with fans and stopping for interviews with media while showing off their newly minted bling.
There was cause for optimism. Playing with something of an understrength squad, with the talented John Obi Mikel and powerful left back Taye Taiwo missing, Samson Siasia guided his charges to the final and were a few shots shy of beating a full-strength Argentina.
There were many in Nigeria who saw that squad as the most promising since the Dream Team that won Olympic gold in 1996. Solomon Okoronkwo flitted and floated on the right like a ghost with vampire teeth. Chinedu Obasi possessed eye-squinting skills with a wicked turn of pace. Victor Anchebe was a bulldozer dressed up like a fancy SUV, and Efe Ambrose was a defender who possessed fancy if unorthodox feet and uncompromising stopping ability.
Hopes were high that the silver medal would mark the beginning of good things to come. This was a group that was living the fantasy of keeping a successful junior team together and promoting them to the next level.
Ten of the 18-man squad were carryovers from the Under 20 World Cup squad, which also lost in the final to an Argentina team. Three were members of the 2007 u-20 class which reached their World Cup quarterfinals.
There were five players who had no cadet record with Nigeria. One was Peter Odemwingie, the squad's only over-23 player. Another was Anichebe, who was already a first team player at Everton and had just committed to Nigeria rather than England.
Then there was Emmanuel Ekpo of the Columbus Crew. The other two were Groningen's Femi Ajilore and Chibuzor Okonkwo, who was acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best player in the Nigerian domestic league at the time.
On their way to the final, they drew with the Netherlands, before beating Japan, USA, and Belgium, overcoming players like Ryan Babel, Roy Makaay, Brian McBride, Sacha Kljestan, Jozy Altidore, Marouane Fellaini, Jan Vertonghen and Kevin Mirallas.
This was a Nigeria under-23 squad with so much promise that there was genuine expectation that the majority of them would not only walk into the senior team within the next few years, but would dominate it for at least another decade.
It did look promising, initially. Aside from Odemwingie, who was already a senior player, almost all of the others made the step up. Goalkeeper Ambrose Vanzekin was the lone exception who failed to make a single appearance for the senior side.
But many of those appearances were peripheral. Dele Adeleye, Onyekachi Apam, Chinedu Obasi, Sani Kaita, Obinna Nsofor, Efe Ambrose, Victor Anichebe and Ikechukwu Ezenwa were the only ones who made 10 appearances or more. The late Adefemi Olubayo, who was killed in a car crash in Greece, could have made more than his five but for his untimely passing.
That is not a bad conversion rate, especially as those players contributed significantly to the Super Eagles in the years they played. Hibernian's Ambrose accumulated 51 caps and 4 goals on the way to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations title and played at the FIFA World Cup in 2014. But for coach Gernot Rohr's youth-focused policy, he would have made it to Russia this year.
Nsofor played at three Afcon tournaments and one World Cup. Obasi and Kaita made it to one Afcon and one World Cup each, while Adeleye and Apam both played at a single Afcon tournament each.
But disappointment remains. The oldest of these players is now 32. The youngest is 29. They should be the leaders of the current Super Eagles squad, but they are nowhere to be seen. Many either retired or are winding down their careers at obscure clubs in profitable leagues. Anichebe, an Everton legend, hasn't played for the national team since 2011 and is only 30 now.
It is notable that the only player from that squad to make it all the way to the 2018 World Cup in Russia is the one that nobody would have guessed at the time: Backup goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa. And even he's been upstaged by Francis Uzoho, a 19-year-old with next to no senior experience.
A combination of unfortunate injuries, poor career moves, bad lifestyle choices and stunted development have meant that players who should have been held up as the standard-bearers of Nigerian football success are now mostly footnotes of a past that promised much and delivered little.