Nigeria Under-17 coach Manu Garba has promised to lead the Golden Eaglets to victory at next week’s African championship in Morocco. The three-time world champions are drawn in a tough first round group that includes perennial rivals Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo. The full interview:
YOU started this job over a year ago with the mandate to qualify the team for the CAF U17 Championship, looking back what are the highlights for your stint so far?
First and foremost, I want to thank God for this opportunity. After I got the job, first thought about scouting for the right players and I travelled round neighbouring states (Garba is based in Gombe) to look for players who would be ideal for the team.
The players who would be fit into my own philosophy and the kind of game that I want the team to play. Building a team is like building a house because you must first look for available materials before you start building. I felt that any player who would make up the team must be able to control and dominate the ball.
I feel good about the fact that one year after; most of those boys I picked initially are still with this team despite the fact that we have seen thousands of equally good players. I’m happy about this venture because the foundation of this team was strong from the beginning.
You spoke about players being able to adapt to your philosophy, what is your football philosophy?
Though the end result is to win, football is a game of entertainment. Football is meant to be enjoyed and that is my philosophy. I like the way football was played by Brazil in the good old days and most recently, the way Spain and to a larger extent, Barcelona play. Football is about keeping ball possession and it is only when you have ball possession that you can attack. So, if you are not technically good to control the ball and keep possession of the ball, you cannot play in this team. That is my philosophy right from the time we started.
Now, we are at the crucial stage going into the competition, tell us the basic considerations in picking players who will represent the country?
The basic consideration was to pick players who could adapt in so many positions. Other considerations were to pick players who have listening ears, players who are discipline and above all, players who have character. All the players we have selected have almost all of these qualities.
Are you saying merit was the major factor in picking these players?
Merit has always been my watchword even right from my childhood days. I believe in excellence and it is always a factor even when I’m dealing with my children. If somebody else is better than my son, the person gets it. I’m out to make name for myself and all the people working with me know that I won’t compromise merit. I have been here before and I know what it feels to win. So, we have picked players based on merit.
You were part of the team that won the 2007 African Under-17 Championship in Togo and then the FIFA World Cup in Korea, what is the difference between that team and the present squad you have put together?
You recall that you asked me this question before and I still maintained that this team is stronger than the 2007 team that won the World Cup in Korea, even at that point we were screening the players last February in Abuja. These boys have proved me right because we have not lost a match (the team have played 27 matches altogether in both friendly and competitive matches and only drew once) since we started this exercise.
I do remember that the team we took to Korea actually lost one of its qualifying matches away to Morocco, but this present squad have not lost a game in spite of the fact that we have met stiffer oppositions along the way.
Frankly, this team can equally go all the way if given the support and motivation by Nigerians. I have the belief that this team can be the fulcrum for other levels of the national team in the future and they would win many laurels for this country in due course.
Though you team have won almost all their matches, scoring goals as if it were going out of fashion, do you agree with those who have fears that these boys might suffer stage fright at the African Championship in Morocco?
I don’t think these boys would suffer stage fright at the African Championship in Morocco. Why do I say this? If a team can travel out of the shores of the country and won all their qualifying matches, I think such a team deserves some respect.
Remember that some people thought we were going to be eliminated by Mali after we beat them 2-0 in Calabar. They felt that Mali had a better advantage because of their size and coupled with the fact that the second leg was going to be away in Bamako. But God really helped us and we would have won by at least 5-0 in Bamako and we beat them 2-0 again to qualify for the competition for the first time since 2007.
This is a team that is technically sound; a team with character. This is a team ready to face any team at this level anytime, any day. This is a team that create many scoring opportunities and if we had taken all our chances, we would have scored more goals in the process (The team have scored 121 and conceded 15 in 27 matches).
I’m confident that we will continue to create chances at any given rate and if we do that consistently, we would score the goals that would help us secure the ticket to the 2013 FIFA U17 World Cup in UAE as well as win the African Championship.
There are coaches who like to build their team around a particular player, who is the star of your team?
There is no star here because I believe that any of the 30 players we have with us can comfortably play at any given time in the first team. The players know that once another person is ahead of you in training with the week leading to a match, that player gets the nod to play. We don’t have any player we can’t do without. We don’t rely on any particular player to carry the hope of this team and if you look at the goals we have scored, you will discover that it cut across the team. Whether it’s a defender or a striker, anybody in this team can score. We don’t have a Ronaldo or Messi in this team; all the players complement themselves which is an essential factor of a good team.
But we have so many interesting nicknames like Messi, Kanu, and Iniesta in this team, how do you feel personally coaching these boys?
Well… a Musa Yahaya cannot be an Iniesta but an Iniesta can be a great motivation for him. Musa for instance, has his own unique style of play. There is another one Kanu, Alhassan Ibrahim because of his resemblance and similar physique with Nwankwo Kanu. But Alhassan has his own quality and I remember Kanu being quoted as saying at the level Alhassan is now, he was not as good as him during his heydays.
So, the basis of this comparison differs a lot … agreed there could be some similarities in terms of the way they play or carry themselves on the pitch but no two players are the same. Players like Kanu, Messi, and Ronaldo are just inspiration for these boys; we don’t have any star in this team yet.
What are some of the challenges you have faced preparing this team?
I think the biggest challenge my colleagues and I have had was the pressure from many Nigerians to put their boys into the team. Every family and parents want their wards to be in the team but we have a standard before picking players at any given time. The pressure was enormous but we thank God that we were able to cope well. This is a team that you don’t need a note from any godfather before you get the opportunity to play and once you prove yourself, you are picked.
During the screening and during the qualifiers and even after we had qualified, so many players came and we allowed them to compete with the players we already had. One notable example was Success Isaac, who came on his own when we were in Calabar for our first-phase closed camping in Calabar. Today, he’s one of the highest goal scorers in the team.
There is no hanky-panky in this business because we are focussed on the job at hand. Honestly speaking, we have faced so many challenges but we have been able to manage them because we have been prudent in picking the players. We pick players based only on merit irrespective of where he is coming from.
Are you always under pressure before any match?
Pressure? Well, I’m not under any pressure. I’m the type that believes in destiny and after putting my best, I leave the rest to God to decide what is best for me and my team. What I simply do is to pray to God to give me the right mind and approach to select my team before any match, that done, I don’t have any pressure.
Now, you are through with the training tour and soon be heading to Morocco for the African championship and to play against Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo, how prepared is your team?
If the referee blows the whistle now, we are ready. Ghana like Nigeria is one of the most respected teams in age-grade competitions, the same thing for Cote d’Ivoire and you can’t rule out Congo because they are strong too.
What I’m saying in essence is that any of the eight teams are capable of winning the competition and we are not going there to underrate any team. We are focussed and prepared well for this championship, what we need is for Nigerians to pray for these boys because prayer is the key to success. Without any doubt, we have all what it takes to win all our matches and qualify for the World Cup as African champions. What we need is luck, we want all lovers of this team to continue to pray for us.
Do you have certain people in mind when you said ‘the lovers of this team’ to pray for you?
Since we started this campaign, there have been good reports about the team in the papers. This is as a result of the team’s excellent record and brand of football we have been playing. We are grateful to all the media houses and Nigerians for the unqualified support to the team.
Without the support and encouragement of all Nigerians, we won’t be where we are today.
At some point, there were rumours that almost all the players you selected initially failed the mandatory Magnetic Resonance Image Test, was your team depleted as a result of it?
I just told you that I don’t bow to pressure because I always want to do things the right way. At the point of selecting the players, we only used physical and facial appearances as well as available documented evidences which were okay. I’m a father, so I know what and how a 16-year-old child should look like. Of course, African children are not like their European counterparts, you can pick players who are under aged but they could still fail the bone test because of the kind of life they have been used to. Some of these players do menial jobs which might affect their bone formation, failing the MRI test is not conclusive that they are over age.
Be that as it may, this team we have now is very young and anybody who has seen them at close quarters would agree with that.
You rounded off your preparations at the Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence in Doha, Qatar, how impressed were you about the facilities on ground?
Personally, this is the tenth wonder of the world. I have travelled far and wide even during my playing days but I have not seen something as magnificent as this. Everything is located within walking distance and you don’t worry about anything else than football.
We were provided with almost everything we needed to prepare the team and we are very grateful to the management of Aspire for granting us this opportunity to come and camp here ahead of the U-17 Championship in Morocco. By the grace of God, we would like to come back here to prepare after our qualification for the World Cup.
You won two friendly matches you played in Doha and most importantly, the 1-0 win against Al Sadd which paraded Raul Gonzalez, what are your thoughts going forward?
Honestly, I was impressed with the quality and standard our boys exhibited more than the outcome of those matches. I think the people at Al Sadd are still in shock over the fact that a young team straight from Africa could beat a team that has represented them at the Asian Champions League. A team that has one of the greatest players in the world, Raul with other top Qatari national team players…. but football is no longer about names, but about what you can do at the right time.
I’m always happy that ours is a team that create a lot of chances and if we’d taken all those chances against Al Sadd, it could have been a bigger win for us.
