Coach Manu Garba who was announced last Monday as the substantive coach of the Golden Eaglets said that the hardest job in coaching is at the grassroots level. He said that the most demanding part of it is to discover young talented footballers who will still need to go through MRI test.
The U-17 World Cup winner in 2013 made this statement in an exclusive interview with The Point at the Area 3 play ground during the FCT FA Pre-season football tournament.
He said, “The hardest job in coaching is at the grassroots level; after discovering talented players by combing the nooks and crannies of the country then they still need to go through the MRI test which they can fail and when that happens you have to search for a better replacement.
“Though U-17 national team job is a developmental program, however, Nigeria being rated as number one in the world is challenging for me to maintain such huge achievements. So, we are not only looking at coming tops in Africa during the qualifiers, but also lifting the U-17 FIFA World Cup finals. We need to take it one step after another though.”
Speaking about how he could cope with little time on his side to achieve the set goals, the experienced tactician responded.
“There are so many young talented players scattered all over the country, I have been scouting and my assistants are also doing the same because time is against us. We shall bring all these discovered players together alongside the U-15 boys that went to Morocco.
“All these players will be in camp and with less than two weeks we should have picked those that will eventually make the team to execute the Nations Cup qualifiers.”
