.svg.png){kind=logo}
Newly appointed Flying Eagles head coach Abdu Maikaba has unveiled his backroom staff, Completesports.com reports.
Ortega Deniran (first assistant), Abdullahi Biffo (second assistant) and Usman Mohammed (goalkeepers’ trainer) will work with Maikaba.
The Flying Eagles will resume camp in Abuja on Sunday, 17 May, with preparations to begin in earnest for the upcoming WAFU B U-20 Boys Championship that will take place in July.
The competition will serve as the qualification tournament for the 2027 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations. The Flying Eagles are seven-time winners of the continental tournament.
Similarly, the newly-appointed Head Coach of the Golden Eaglets, Eboboritse Uwejamomere has picked Coaches Olumide Joseph Ajibolade (first assistant), Mohammed Kalli Kachala (second assistant) and Abdullahi Isa (goalkeepers’ trainer) to assist him.
This year’s WAFU B U-17 Boys Championship will take place in September, and will serve as the qualification tournament for next year’s Africa U-17 Cup of Nations.
2 Comments
Hope the Nigerian concept of pushing the Igbos to the fringes,as we have witness in politics has not come to football?The Igbos have been forced out of the mainstream with bias and intolerance,prejudice in public life,economic opportunities,rooted in structural inequalities!
Having said that,if the coaches chosen are the best we have,they will always have my support.But selection must be done fairly and free from religious and tribal sentiment..Because when a coach is making selection of his assistants with individuals from his region and religion,in a country such as Nigeria,I won’t be surprised to see a list filled with people also from his ethnicity and possibly religion.It has been the chosen path for a while now,especially in our youth sector.
Our youth football has suffered too much in recent years!Players must be selected from across the country,so that we’re not disadvantaged,only by our own actions!
Greenurf, you’re touching a nerve many people pretend not to see. The truth is that the Nigeria Football Federation has become a reflection of the Nigerian system itself, too much favoritism, too many internal camps, too much politics around opportunities.
And honestly, that’s a major reason our youth football has stagnated badly in recent years.
Nigeria is too gifted football-wise to be struggling this much at youth level. The raw talent is everywhere: streets, academies, local competitions across every region. But when selections start getting influenced by tribe, connections, loyalty networks, or “our own people” mentality, you automatically weaken the system yourself.
That’s how countries destroy generations of talent without realizing it.
Once people stop trusting that selections are purely merit-based, the entire structure begins to rot from inside. Real talents get ignored, average players get pushed forward because they know somebody, and the national teams lose hunger, balance, and quality over time.
And to be fair, this problem is not exclusive to Igbos alone. Different groups in Nigeria have complained about the same thing at different times. The bigger issue is that Nigeria keeps rewarding loyalty over competence in almost every sector: politics, public institutions, even football.
The painful part is that our greatest football generations came from a truly national spread of talent. Nobody cared where you came from if you could play. That spirit is fading, and the decline in our youth football is one of the clearest signs.