Disappointed about his wards’ spate of misses in their opening 1-0 win against Zambia, Nigeria’s head coach Nduka Ugbade has promised to retool the Golden Eaglets in their next Group B match against Morocco.
Morocco tops the Group B’s section of the on-going U17 Africa Cup of Nations Algeria 2023 on goal difference after their opening 2-0 win against South Africa but Ugbade surmised the Golden Eaglets would do everything to ensure a handsome victory when both sides face off tomorrow in Constantine.
“The game against Zambia was very tough for us,” Ugbade admitted.“ But were able to the task.”
He added: “ We created chances but took only took one.
“We missed a lot of chances that would have created the opportunity for us to score more goals but from this group, the Zambian team is about the best. They are better than South Africa, they are better than Morocco.
“ This is not to say that Morocco is not good.”
A win for either side tomorrow would certainly guarantee a spot into the next round and Ugbade enthused their opening victory is a morale booster for the rest of the tournament.
“Most of the times, for the young teams, the most important thing is psychology. Not physicality, tactics or anything. Winning the first game gives us a mental edge and psychologically, we are better than we started,” he further said. “We created lots of chances that we couldn’t finish, some passes were not correct and many more errors. But the good thing is that we keep improving.”
Though Nigeria has yet to win the U17 AFCON since 2007,Ugbade remains upbeat :“Of course we have the targets to win, but we need to go a step at a time. We focus on the next match and if we win we are in the quarters. We get to the quarters we win and we are in the World Cup.”