This evening at Estadio Nacional Julio Martinez Pradanos in Santiago De Chile, Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets will begin their title defence at this year’s FIFA U17 World Championship against the United States of America.
Nigeria won the last edition of the cadet championship held in the United Arab Emirates to become the most successful country in the tournament. Out of 10 appearances, Eaglets have won the world championship a record four times. They were champions in 1985 in China, 1993 in Japan, 2007 in South Korea and 2013 in the United Arab Emirate. Consequently, the Coach Emmanuel Amuneke led Golden Eaglets are gunning for their fifth title.
Interestingly, all the four titles won by Nigeria were in Asia and so the tournament in Chile, which is in Southern America poses a challenge to the Eaglets to prove that they can indeed rule the world even outside Asia.
Eaglets are favoured to win the trophy back to back in Chile because apart from the fact that they are the defending champions, expect in 2003, they have advanced to the last four at each of the tournaments they attended.
They were runners up in 1987 in Canada, 2001 in Trindad and Tobago and 2009 when Nigeria hosted the championship. The only time Nigeria attended the tournament but could not go beyond the group stage was in 2003 in Finland when they were denied a place in the last eight by the drawing of lots after finishing equal on points, goals and goals difference with Costa Rica.
Although Nigeria is the most successful nation at this level, the Eaglets failed to qualify for five editions of the tournament. They did not qualify for Italy 1991, Egypt 1997, New Zealand 1999, Peru 2005 and Mexico 2011.
Furthermore, even as the Eaglets could not impress at the 2015 Africa U17 championship in Niger Republic, it did not come to many as a surprise because their record on the continent is not anything to write home about.
Available records show that Nigeria have won the Africa U17 Championship only two times in 2001 and 2007 and were runners up in 1995 and failed to qualify in 2011.
Ahead of their opening match against the United States of America this evening, Coach Amuneke granted an interview to the team’s Media Officer where he said Eaglets are good enough for a fifth title in Chile.
“The World Cup in Chile is here and we are mindful of the fact that we are going to play our first game against the USA on October 17 and we are working very hard.
“Hopefully, the image we gave at the African championship would be very different from what we are going to see in Chile and I’m positive that we are going to do well in Chile.
“We have been working hard to correct some of the problems we had in Niger and we are hopeful that the new players we have added to the team would give us what we want; and add more value to what we already have on ground by the time we get to Chile.
“We want to defend the Cup we won in 2013 with the best of our abilities; but in the process, we want to see the team play very well and for the players to really enjoy themselves in Chile,” he said.
For those who have been following the team’s journey to Chile, the players to watch out for in the line up of the team are Kelechi Nwakali who is the captain, Victor Osimhen, Ebere Osinachi and Samuel Chukwueze.
However, Amuneke in the interview insisted his team is not built around individual players as he said everything revolves round team work.
“I think this team is not based only on Nwakali and Osimhen. We have other good players in the team….but I don’t always like to talk about individual players. We should not forget that these are players just growing up and we should not put too much pressure on them.
“I want all the players to work for each other; play as team and that is the only way we can get the best out of them. People easily mention Nwakali and Osimhen because they have been with us for a very long time but in the process of building this team, we have seen other good players.”
Like any other coach, Amuneke knows what a good start tonight against the USA will do to the confidence level of his players going into the remaining group games against host Chile and Croatia.
“Honestly, we want to start the tournament on a winning note though it is not as easy as that. Every first match is crucial and it would be great if we can win our first match.
“We have to channel our thoughts and plans to that first game because it would help in consolidating our position in the other matches.”
