Nigeria’s cadet national team, Golden Eaglets will on Tuesday fly out of Abuja to Sao Paulo in Brazil, ahead of their participation in this year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup, towards which the team’s coach, Manu Garba has listed 27 players for the build-up camp, megasportsarena.com reports.
After landing at their pre-competition training base next week, the Eaglets will get down to real business of team selection, with the number of players expected to be cut to 21 before the World Cup, which starts on October 26, where the five-time champions are pitched against Hungary, Australia and Ecuador in the group stage.
Manu hinted that the bulk of his preferred players for the trip to Brazil has those that recently featured at the UEFA/CAF Assist Invitational in Turkey, where the Eaglets won two games and lost one, beating the hosts and Guatemala but fell 4-2 to Senegal in their third match.
He, however, acknowledged that he will not be able to name his final squad for Brazil 2019 based only on technique and skills, because they will all have to pass through the mandatory Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, which serve as age tests for lads eligible for the competition.
Incidentally, the first round of those tests will be conducted this week in Abuja, but Manu enthused that the chunk of lads he has in mind will scale through and eventually be part of the flight to The Samba Nation early next week.
Ahead of next week’s trip, Manu disclosed that he learnt a lot from the recent invitational in Turkey, where his team spanked the hosts 2-0 in their opening game, then thrashed Guatemala 5-1, only to succumb to fellow-West Africans, Senegal in their final match.
The UAE 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup winning gaffer acknowledged the level of opposition his side faced team faced in Turkey and opted to pick positives from the defeat by Senegal, which he said was an eye-opener for him and his players ahead of the main event in Brazil.
Manu stated: “I think it was a good exposure for the boys. Since the last AFCON in April the team had not played any international match and they faced very stiff opposition from different confederations which was very good for the exposure of their confidence.
“We also learnt a lot from the loss to Senegal. They prepared better than any other team in the competition. They had eight players from the African Games and also played a competition in France before coming down to Turkey. Overall it was a good tournament for the team.”
