Deaf Eagles to regain lost glory during W/African tournament
The Nigeria Deaf Football Association (NDFA) on Sunday expressed its determination to reclaim its lost glory in the West African Deaf Football Union (WADFU) tournament billed for Sierra Leone in September.
Banjo Kamiludeen, the technical director of the national team also known as ‘Deaf Eagles’ told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that this was against its 2nd position in the 2018 edition.
Kamiludeen said that the Deaf Eagles were the back-to- back winners in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of the competition but emerged second in the 4th, 5th and 8th editions of the annual tournament.
“Nigeria is ranked number one due to its outstanding records in the previous editions of WADFU fiesta.
” This is because since the beginning of this tournament, no country has ever won the trophy three times consistently.
“We are determined to storm Sierra Leone to participate in the tournament and targeting to take back our usual first place and lift the trophy for our great country, Nigeria,” he said.
He said that the body had done the needful as proposals for its necessary preparations and travelling logistics had been forwarded to the authorities for necessary actions.
He said that there was the need to assemble the footballers to get them into serious training and for them to be in top form.
He said, “The ministry has been dully informed of our plans to participate in the event and we have submitted our proposals which I believe they have received and have begun working on it .
“The footballers will be more committed as soon as we get signal from the government because they will be invited to camp for the national assignment which is what they are expecting,” Kamiludeen said.
The NDFA technical director disclosed that other participating countries were equally eyeing the tournament’s trophy and had commenced preparations.
He added that necessary support and early preparations would go a long way in the overall performance of the team during the tournament.
He said that it was the fire brigade approach encountered by the team in 2018 edition that affected their performance.
He said that they lost 0-1 to Mali in the final matches of the tournament hosted by Togo.
“We are aware that other participating countries are also planning to lift the tournament trophy but we are going to do our best to show them that we are equal to the task.
“This is the reason why we are soliciting for adequate response from the ministry to enable us put things in order as to do with necessary buildup
” We don’t want to have a repeat of the rush preparations we had last year, when we spent only a week in camp before we left for Togo,” he said. (NAN)