President of Nigeria Football Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau has appointed respected football administrator and Chairman of Katsina State Football Association, Alhaji Aminu Balele Kurfi and sports marketing guru, Hon. Bukola Olopade as part of a three-man panel of advisers for preparations of age-grade National Teams for upcoming major international competitions.
The empanelling of the football experts, which also includes Alhaji Abba Mukhtar, has been done pending the composition of Sub-Committees by the new NFF Executive Committee, and the panel will be inaugurated on Thursday, 20th October at the NFF Secretariat by Alhaji Gusau.
The U23 National Team, also known as Olympic Eagles, will engage their Tanzanian counterparts in a two-legged second-round fixture, starting with the first leg in Dar es Salaam on Sunday and the return session in Ibadan next week Saturday. Victory on aggregate will take the Olympic Eagles to the next round of the qualifiers, which final tournament has been scheduled for the Kingdom of Morocco 2nd – 26th November 2023.
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Already, the U20 and U17 Boys’ squads have qualified for their continental competitions, by winning their respective WAFU B tournaments earlier this year. The U20 boys, Flying Eagles conquered all in Niamey, Niger Republic in May while the U17 boys, Golden Eaglets were triumphant in Cape Coast, Ghana in June.
The U20 Africa Cup of Nations will be staged in Egypt 20th February – 12th March 2023 with the top four teams qualifying to represent Africa at next year’s FIFA U20 World Cup finals in Indonesia.
The U17 Africa Cup of Nations will be staged in Algeria 8th – 30th April 2023 with the top four teams qualifying to represent Africa at next year’s FIFA U17 World Cup finals in Peru.
8 Comments
I feel a former coach of a successful age grade team like Manu Garba or Amu should be part of this committee. The panel need to hear how they prepared their teams then to win those world titles. A model of preparation can then be adopted for the current and subsequent coaches of our national teams if we are really serious with remaining relevant in this game.
One of the greatest problems of our national teams, especially our age grade teqms, under Pinnick was lack of preparation for international matches. There should be a clear departure form the past if Gasau is to achieve anything meaningful with age teams.
Shhhhh….you’re making way too much sense!
My grouse is that do we really need a committee to tell us that the right coaches and technical crew should be selected and that zonal screenings and camping should start early enough….??? Do we need a committee to have basic common sense….???
Please what is the duty of the technical department of the NFF led by exinternational “94 squad” Austin Egyavoen…???.
The secret (though no longer a secret) at age grade tournaments have been early preparations.
Sebastine Brodericks 85 squad was put together from a YSFON national competition
Fany Amun’s 93 squad was a result of another YSFON/Dana national tournament and more extensive scouting
Yemi Tella’s team spent over a year together
Manu Garba’s team was pulled from NFF u13, u15 and copa cocacola national championships, plus more through zonal screenings that threw up hundreds of players. That team played close to 87 friendly matches leading up to the u17 WC in UAE and loosing just twice. They even defeated Al-Sadd FC (a professional club featuring Raul Gonzalez) in one of those friendlies.
Amunike’s class of 2015 were mostly an offshoot of the 2013 class who were too young to make the team earlier.
So again I ask do we need even common sense, not to talk of committees, to tell us what to do to perform well at tournaments…?
Now already even before camping starts….these committee members already have 3 slots out of 18 in those national teams……that’s where failure starts from.
I forgot to add Dessers at Cremonese too and we already have some national team players already in the second division of clubs like Leganes, Sochaux and so on..
As he dey sweet them he dey pain us.as he dey pain us he dey sweet Dem.
I will leave u to make ur conclusion.
I am tired of being misquoted.
U can make ur own conclusion I have given u the song.
Our professional Nollywood Players.
Those day of telling match results are gone.. then all under aged team failed to qualify.u 17 20 23 and last straw was Qatar lost .. the handwriting was on the wall den . Now new men are on board.. I hope the money there wil be used for development not traveling expenses etc
VIA vs u 23 eagles
The are the types of matches national teams shud be exposed to before going for any assignment . I am sure the main super eagles wil get beaten by the VIA academy guys. Not because dey are better but because dey are always together.
That is y teams from north Africa wil always win the Nigerian clubs.
U 23 team where basically playing like rivers united while the VIA academy guys played like esperance FC.there is no way they wil not win a less prepared team even the super eagles wil fall to them .. u can now see the reason why players from academy are better .
Na so aboki frm aboki e just dey go Looool!!!!!.. anyway Biafra is not far frm realisation. thank God for that.