The Golden Eaglets as the Nigeria national U-17 men’s team have been well known, are the FIFA U-17 World Cup standard bearers with a record five-time titles under their belt yet they will be missing in action when the 2023 edition gets underway next month in Indonesia, writes MORAKINYO ABODUNRIN.
When the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup begins next month in Indonesia, Nigeria, the most successful team in the history of the global cadet competition, will be missing yet again in action.
This will be the 19th edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, the biennial international men’s youth football tournament contested by the U-17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA and it will be held in Indonesia between November 10 and December 2.
Incidentally, this will be the first time that Indonesia will host a FIFA tournament and the first time that the FIFA U-17 World Cup will be held in Southeast Asia. It will also be the first time a FIFA tournament will be held in the region since the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Thailand. This edition also marks the return of the tournament after a four-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing FIFA to cancel the 2021 edition.
Significantly in its 38-year-history, African countries have always been part of the FIFA U-17 World Cup and have remarkably produced seven winners out of the 18 tournaments.
In fact, the Golden Eaglets as the Nigeria national U-17 men’s team have been well known are the FIFA U-17 World Cup standard bearers with record five-time titles under their belt.
Nigeria won the maiden edition of FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985 when no one knew that two African teams along with Guinea travelled to China for what was then known as the FIFA Kodak U-16 World Cup in Beijing, but both came back as heroes with Nigeria overcoming Guinea on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the semi-finals en route to beating Germany 2-0 in the finals.
In the following edition in Canada 1987, the Golden Eaglets narrowly lost to the then Soviet Union on penalties but would win again in Japan 1993, South Korea 2007, UAE 2013 and Chile 2015 to becoming only the second team after Brazil to win it back-to –back and making the Golden Eaglets the first team ever to win the junior world cup five times.
Apart from that, Nigeria also got to the finals two more times, losing to France in Trinidad and Tobago in 2001 and at home to Switzerland in Nigeria 2009.
But the Golden Eaglets have since missed out of the competition on four previous occasions including the 1991 and 1995 editions where Ghana incidentally won their only two titles in Italy (1991) inspired by the prodigious talents of one of the world’s most heralded teenage footballers, Nii Odartey Lamptey and Sammy Kuffuor and also in Egypt (1995) with a team that has the likes of Emmanuel Bentil and future Black Stars captain, Stephen Appiah.
“The requirement to succeed in youth tournaments or at U-17 level is to start with getting the best young players who have the potential and passion of playing for the country,” veteran youth coach and two-time FIFA U-17 World Cup winners with Golden Eaglets, Manu Garba, told NationSport.
“Early and adequate preparation to make sure all factors of performance like technical, tactical, physical, psychological and mental fitness are ingrained to the players and playing local friendly matches and any time you get a better player, he should be invited to fight for a place in the team and also expose the players to Grade A and if possible international tournaments.
“If you look at the European teams, the U-17 teams play Europa youth leagues before major tournaments and those tournaments toughen and expose their players.
“If possible Nigeria can organize regional U15 tournaments and scout from all regions and the best players can be assembled in one center after the regional tournaments to select those who can go to camp periodically before the main camp a few months to the qualifying matches.”
Equally, former African Footballer of the Year and Golden Eaglets’ World Cup-winning coach in 2015, Emmanuel Amuneke shared Garba’s sentiment.
“As a close, you must really have the pathway of what you really want to do and achieve and secondly you must look at the players that can fit into your plans both from the technical and tactical aspect of the game,” the former Barcelona winger told NationSport.
“It’s not about how skilful the players are; rather, you have to look at how intelligent the players are and you must also have enough time to work with the players .
“For instance in 2015, I was not even interested in the physical built of the players but the intelligence of the players which we were able to work with both technically and tactically but above all, both the technical crew and the backroom staff must have the same vision about the direction the team is headed to,” he added.
Speaking in the same vein, former youth international goalkeeper and Golden Eaglets goalkeepers trainer to the 2013 and 2015 FIFA U-17- winning teams, Emeka Amadi offered his thoughts.
“The number one secret of success at the U-17 level is to start early by scouting for talented young players and to start early camping with the players,” Amadi, a FIFA U-20 World Cup silver medallist with the Flying Eagles in 1989 added. “If you remember the 2013 set, we stayed for about six months in Calabar before we even started playing friendly matches and that really helped us to win the World Cup.
“After we came second at the U-17 AFCON in Morocco, we went almost one month in Dubai in training camp before we even went to the World Cup.
“As such, long preparation is very important because it gives an opportunity to see a lot of good players. As such we need to spend money on the youth teams in order to be able to win the U-17 World Cup again,” he added.
Another long-suffering youth coach, Haruna Ilerika who doubles as the secretary of the Federal Capital Territory Football Association (FCTFA), is also forthcoming.
“We cannot be at the FIFA U-17 World Cup all the time,” Ilerika, the national U-15 coach, told NationSport. “It’s all about development and other countries are developing too.
“Nigeria have at least had a very good fair share of winning the tournament and if we are not there this time around (in Indonesia) that does not mean we are not a good nation.
“Since we are not there this time, it’s for us to go and reassess, re-groom and reorganize ourselves towards the next edition and the boys should be given proper focus, quality time for camping and nurture them.
“If they are properly groomed, under a long period of time, they will be useful not only to Under-17s but to Under-20s and at the same time to the main Super Eagle in the nearest future.”
Yet respected American journalist , Paul Gardner, who has covered almost all editions of the FIFA U-17 World Cup since its conception in 1985, had long argued that the chances of many youngsters progressing through the junior ranks to senior national team levels is markedly low for obvious reasons.
“The difficulty –or is it the impossibility–of predicting which soccer ‘grain will grow and which will not’ has to be heavily underlined because it bedevils the entire field of youth development,” Gardner, a Hall of Fame inductee for his record coverage of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, noted. “It seems that picking the best from a group of teenagers entails judgment that can reflect only current form.
“The chances of a boy advancing through a club’s youth scheme to become a regular starter in the senior team are slim indeed; fewer than five per cent make this transition,” he added.
According to coach Manu Garba , there is indeed truism in Gardner’s postulations but he reckoned that other factors rather than talents impede the progress of many youngsters in their careers.
“Part of the reason why so many good players at U17 level failed to make it to the Super Eagles for instance, is that some of the players failed to get good offer to clubs where they will develop, also some of the players fall in to the hands of agents who are only after money and take them to clubs where they don’t value African players,” Garba who led Mailantarki Care Football Academy to win the Dana and Norway Cups in 2022, further said. “Importantly, some of the players don’t have the discipline to manage success in the sense that when they start to get money, they go into living lavishly, going to night clubs and by doing so, lose focus and form hence it will naturally affect their development.”
Nevertheless and given its remarkable success of her youngsters over the years, Nigerian football has benefited immensely from the FIFA U-17 World Cup with many upstarts weaned from that age- grade level rising to become prominent members of the Super Eagles.
From Nduka Ugbade in 1985 to Wilson Oruma in 1993 to Kelechi Iheanacho in 2013 and Victor Osimhen in 2015, Nigeria’s conveyor belt has been bursting at the seams.
Between the sticks, we had Lucky Agbonsebafe who was top class in China 85 but it was Dele Alampasu from the Eaglet’s winning team of 2013 that was voted best goalkeeper to earn the golden glove award. Aside, there have been a series of other goalkeepers including Lemmy Isa in 1987, Andrew Aikhomogbe in 1995, Bassey Akpan in 2001 who gained wide acclaim for their heroics.
In the defence and from the 1985 set, we had Ugbade as well as Binebi Numa and Kingsley Akhionbare who were rock solid and dominant. But there was so much brilliance in the defence line of 1993 where the duo of Mobi Oparaku and Celestine Babayaro shone brightly as they cemented their legacy with heroics with the national U-23 team that won the country’s and indeed Africa’s first soccer gold medal at the centennial Olympic Games.
Of course, there was also the emergence of some midfield gems including Pascal Karibe Ojigwe who starred in the 1993 U-17 winning team as well as from the ill-fated team of 2001 was John Obi Mikel who later won the Silver Ball at the FIFA U20 World Cup in the Netherlands in 2005 as well as playing remarkably for English Premier League side, Chelsea even as he captained the Super Eagles for so many years.
There is also Kelechi Iheanacho who emerged as a forward for Man City and Leicester after his breakthrough at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in the UAE in 2013 where he was the quintessential attacking midfielder for a triumphant Nigerian his creativity behind Success Isaac and Taiwo Awoniyi earned him the golden ball.
“Apart from winning titles, it had always been my dream of making my country proud and it’s a remarkable joy to have won those titles as junior internationals,” Awoniyi who also won the 2015 CAF U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Senegal , told NationSport.“ Of course, we can’t forget all the advice we got from all the officials telling us that winning will change a lot of things in us all, I’m forever grateful.”
Still in the attacking line, Nwankwo Kanu in all his height and silky skills first enthralled the world in Japan in 1993 as he inspired the Golden Eaglets to their second FIFA U17 World title with a win over Ghana in the first all-Africa final match.
Kanu would later lead the country’s Under 23 national team to a storied campaign at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics Games as Nigeria won a historic soccer gold medal aside his astonishing performances for European clubs including Ajax, Inter Milan as well as Arsenal and Portsmouth in the English Premier League.
Chrisantus Macauley was top scorer in South Korea 2017 when Nigeria annexed her third title in a tournament that had the likes of David De Gea in goal for Spain and tournament MVP, Toni Kroos of Germany.
Yet it was Victor Osimhen that raised the attacking bar to an unprecedented level in 2015 after scoring an impressive 10 goals in Chile to lead Nigeria to her fifth title in a tournament that featured Christian Pulisic of the USA, Eder Militao of Brazil, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Tom Davies of England and Dayot Upamecano of France.
Of course, comparison becomes inevitable as to which of Nigeria’s five winning team can be regarded as the all-time best?
Could it be the Nduka Ugbade-led school boys of 1985 that won the inaugural cadet team or the Musa Muhammed-led class of 2013 that scored a record 25 goals in seven matches or the Kelechi Nwakali-led team of 2015 that extended Nigeria’s grip of the FIFA U-17 World Cup?
“I was part of the 2007 FIFA U17 World cup winning team in South Korea as first assistant coach to Late Yemi Tella and the FIFA U17 World cup winning team in UAE 2013 as head coach and I can therefore assess the two teams from the qualifying matches of the AFCON U17 to the World Cup,” Coach Manu Garba further said.“ Though the 2007 team won both the AFCON U17 in Togo and the World Cup in South Korea, the 2013 team won silver in the AFCON U17 in Morocco and Gold medal in the World Cup and to some extent, both teams were very good.
“But the 2013 team was better than the 2007 team in terms of team play, number of goals scored in preparation, AFCON U17 and the World Cup
“The 2007 team won the final beating Spain 4-1 in penalty kicks while the 2013 team defeated 2011 defending champions Mexico 6-1 in the group stages and 3-0 in the final.
“The 2013 team scored 25 goals in seven matches and conceded only four and importantly, won the fair play trophy, the Most Valuable Player and the silver boot award for the second best scorer in Kelechi Iheanacho as well as the Golden Gloves award for the best goalkeeper in Dele Alampasu.
“You can’t beat that,” Garba added.
Amadi, the former goalkeeper with Bendel Insurance and Rangers International, equally quipped: “ I was opportune to be part of the winning teams of 2013 and 2015 and I think those two sets though under different coaches had the same template in terms of quality of players and long-time preparation which helped to produce two solid teams that won the FIFA U-17 World Cup back-to-back.
“These two teams were well prepared like soldiers because we put it into their heads that the objective of going to war is to win and you can see the rate of success achieved by the 2013 and 2015 teams.”
Golden Eaglets : Famous Players
THE GOALKEEPERS:
Lucky Agbonsebafe (Nigeria -1985)
Imama Amapakabo (1985)
Andrew Aikhuomogbe (1989)
Emmanuel Babayaro (1993)
Bassey Akpan (2001)
Dele Alampasu (2013)
Francis Uzoho (2013)
Akpan Udoh (2015)
DEFENDERS
Nduka Ugbade (1985)
Pet Peter Ogaba (1987)
Mobi Oparaku (1993)
Celestine Babayaro (1997)
Bin Binebi Numa (1985)
Kingsley Aikhonbare (1985)
Kenneth Omeruo (2009)
Musa Muhammed(2013)
MIDFIELDERS
Baldwin Bazuaye (1985)
Fatai Atere (1985 & 1987)
Pascal Ojigwe (1993)
Wilson Oruma (1993)
Femi Opabunmi (2001)
John Obi Mikel (2003)
Kelechi Iheanacho (2013)
Kelechi Nwakali (2015)
STRIKERS
Joseph Babatunde (1985)
Jonathan Akpoborie (1985)
Philip Osondu (1987)
Victor Ikpeba (1989)
Benedict Akwuegbu (1989
Nwankwo Kanu (1993)
Isaac Promise (2003)
Chrisantus Macaulay (2007)
Sani Emmanuel (2009)
Taiwo Awoniyi (2013)
Success Isaac (2013)
Victor Osimhen (2015)
Samuel Chukwueze (2015)
PHOTOS
1985: Nduka Ugbade
1993: Wilson Orums and Nwankwo Kanu
2013: Kelechi Iheanacho
2015: Kelechi Nwakali and Victor Osimhen
