Niger 2018: Garba promises to lead Eaglets to glory

Coach of the Under-17 male national team otherwise known as the Golden Eaglets, Manu Garba has promised to pick the sole ticket for the Africa Under-17 Nations Cup in Niger Republic in September.

Seven West African nations will do battle for the sole ticket in Niger Republic when the qualifiers gets underway on September 2, 2018.

Garba gave this assurance when some board members of the Ambassador. Chris Giwa led Executive Committee, visited the team at the FIFA Goal Project pitch, alongside the Acting General Secretary, Dr Emmanuel Ikpeme and Director Technical, Bitrus Bewarang.

The Under -17 World Cup winning coach said “we have been in camp for more than two months and have screened over 5000 players, before shortlisting the sixty in camp now”

“We know the standard and we gave everyone the opportunity to showcase what he can do before selecting the best, who are in the camp now pending the time we conduct the Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI and trim the list to 30 or 35″,he explained.

Garba, who was in charge of the team in 2013 when they won in Korea confidently said:” the team is strong in all

departments and the results so far have shown it, because we played quite a number of friendlies scoring over 100 goals, with the last being an FA Cup participant in Lagos that we defeated 6-1 on Thursday.”

Earlier, the General Secretary, Dr Emmanuel Ikpeme had assured the team that approval has been given for the team to undergo the MRI test in Abuja before the one that CAF will conduct at the venue of the competition”

“I know the challenge of MRI because I have been there before. I want 70 to 80 percent of you to pass the test so that the Coach will not have any problem, ” Ikpeme stated.

He expressed optimism that the team will do well given the quality of the coaches handling the boys. “I have no doubt in the ability and competence of Coaches Manu Garba and Nduka Ugbade, given their track records and I want you to keep to their instructions.”

Dr Ikpeme further added that he expects to see 50 percent of this group make it to the Super Eagles.”