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GOLDEN EAGLETS TARGET THIRD CONTINENTAL TITLE IN EMMANUEL AMUNEKE’S DOMAIN

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Nigeria’s U-17 team, Golden Eaglets will begin their quest for gold again on Sunday, facing the team of their former manager and mentor, Emmanuel Amuneke’s Tanzania. Amuneke, the Nigerian golden boy was the last successful coach of the Golden Eaglets, guiding the side to win the FIFA U17 World Cup for a record extending fifth time.

Since last year, Amuneke has been engaged by Tanzania to turn around the football fortunes of the country. He is in charge of all the Tanzanian national team and will no doubt hurry back from Cairo’s Africa Cup of Nations draw to guide his team in Sunday’s opener of the CAF u17 championship.

It will probably be the second time a Nigerian will guide a national team against his country. Iffy Onuora who has a Nigerian nationality did the same on March 27, 2011 in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in Abuja.  The Ethiopians fell 0-4. Will Tanzania fall in similar way on Sunday?

While the Golden Eaglets have dominance at the world level, even becoming the first winners in 1985, such strength had not been reflected in the continent. This edition is the ninth, but Nigeria only won twice as against the five world titles under the Golden Eaglets’ belt.

The two victories are in 2001 and 2007. Even when they won the world title in 2015, they were runners-up in the continent. They could not even qualify for the continental championship in 2017.

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But the team looks stable under Manu Garba who has been the manager for some time. He was an assistant to the late Yemi Tella who guided the team to win in 2007.

He sees Tanzania 2019 as a chance to establish himself further.“Every tournament is hard to win,” the 55-year-old Garba who guided Nigeria yet to World Cup glory in 2013 told CAFOnline.com.

“No matter how good a team is, sometimes you need elements of luck to win the trophy.” By and by, the Eaglets have in the past failed five times to qualify for the U-17 AFCON and were eliminated three times at the group stages in their previous eight appearances.

But Garba’s right-hand, Nduka Ugbade, who incidentally captained the Eaglets to win the maiden FIFA U-16 World Cup in 1985, is upbeat about the potentialities of the current lads, adding that Nigeria remains the team to beat in Tanzania.

“The truth is that the U-17 AFCON is very competitive because of the amount of effort that is concentrated upon it by most countries,” Ugbade who was also an assistant to Garba when Nigeria won the U-20 AFCON four years ago in Senegal told CAFOnline.com.

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“Teams from Africa can compete favourably well at the FIFA  World Cup  because the intensity of the game at this level  on the continent is very high and that is why the Nigerian team over the years is difficult to beat, due to strength, skills and mental speed.”

Speaking further, Ugbade was of the opinion that CAF has raised the bar for the U-17 AFCON with recently introduced regional tournaments to determine eventual qualifiers for the biennial continental competition.

“I think the U-17 AFCON has taken a new dimension because you must have competed at the highest level to earn the zonal ticket and it makes the competition tougher,” he explained.

“How I wish CAF can allow two teams from each zone to qualify for the main championship in future because some of the traditional teams like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and even South Africa would not be in Tanzania.”

The Eaglets were lucky to make the trip to Tanzania since Ghana nearly upstaged their applecart in the regional WAFU Zone B final match in Niger last September where they triumphed 3-1 on penalties after they both tied 1-1 in regulation time.

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Ugbade continued: “I want to believe our zonal tournament in Niger was the toughest but I think it has also toughened our mental strength ahead of the trip to Tanzania.

 “I so much believe in this team we are taking to Tanzania and I will be the happiest because I have not won the U-17 AFCON before and the last time we were beaten in the final on penalties by Cote d’Ivoire in 2013.”

The present lads showed their readiness for the 2019 AFCON at the recently held UEFA-organised U-17 Turkey Invitational Tournament where despite losing 2-0 in their opener against Senegal.  They beat Montenegro (4-2) and their Group A rivals in Tanzania, Angola (3-1).

“There won’t be any margin for errors for us in Tanzania because we will have the best teams from all the regions of Africa,” noted Ugbade who was part of the Super Eagles’ 1994 AFCON-winning team in Tunisia. “Apart from Senegal that defeated us in Turkey, we will also have Cameroon and Guinea. “Our objective first and foremost would be qualification for the World Cup by reaching the semi-finals and, thereafter, we can focus our attention on winning the trophy for the third time for Nigeria,” he noted. 

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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