Mosunmola Eric, the wife of former Super Eagles goalkeeper and assistant coach Joe Erico, said her husband was ill for three days and complained of body pains before his death.
The widow said she found her husband died when she tried to wake him up on Thursday morning.
“He was ill for about three days and we took him to the hospital, he complained of body pain. He was okay and we came back home. But just yesterday (Wednesday) night, he started feeling somehow and he later slept. I tried to wake him up this morning but he was stone dead,” Mosunmola said.
However, Joe Erico passed away at age 72.
He was nicknamed ‘Erico’ by ardent NEPA FC fans while he was the team’s goalkeeper.
He was an apostle of ‘Jogo Bonito’ – an aesthetic football philosophy that is based on the tip-tap playing pattern similar to that of Brazilian Samba.
He made Julius Berger FC play this brand of football when the team mesmerized the domestic league scene in the early 1990s with Erico in charge as head coach.
Erico was a goalkeeper for Electricity Connectors of Nigeria (ECN) and for Green Eagle of Nigeria in his playing days.
He was also in the Green Eagles team that placed third at the 1976 Africa Cup of Nations in Ethiopia.
