Determined to produce a virile National U-17 team that would make Nigerians proud, Head coach, Garba Manu, has said he would deploy a scientific style in screening of players earmarked for the exercise.
Though over one hundred budding youngsters have already been penciled down by the coaching crew to form the new set of Golden Eaglets, fifty of them will however kick-start the camping exercise.
The Golden Eaglet will be gunning for a ticket to the 2013 African U-17 Championship to be held in Morocco and 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup in United Arab Emirates.
Speaking ahead of the screening exercise that would commence soon, Manu revealed that the drilling of the team would not be a one-off assignment in order to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“I have already submitted our programmes to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and this is being given the necessary attention,” Manu said even as he revealed that he would adopt the theory of elimination by substitution.
“I have already submitted a list of 50 players that would make the first batch because I have already seen most of them in action. Other players will start coming in as we are dropping (those that are not good enough). There is a list of more than 100 other players from my assistants as well as from stakeholders,” added Manu who was part of the crew that led Nigeria to win the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2007.
Manu had repeatedly said that he would be guided by equity and fair play in selecting the right players that would form the batch of the next Golden Eaglets in order to emulate the successes recorded by their illustrious predecessors.
Past gloriesNduka Ugbade, who will be assisting Manu, led Nigeria to win the maiden FIFA Under-16 World Cup at China’85.
The Golden Eaglets mounted the podium again when Wilson Oruma hoisted the trophy at Japan’93 and it was the turn of Lukman Haruna to lift the trophy for Nigeria at the 2007 edition held in South Korea.
The Golden Eaglets nearly won the trophy for a record fourth time when Nigeria hosted the tournament in 2009 but were denied by a stubborn Swiss team.
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