*Says NFF Isn’t Doing Enough In Helping Grassroots Football In Nigeria…
Coordinator of the Bundesliga Trial Evaluation 2020, as well as Coach of Yobo Football Academy, Harry has admitted that the attacking position is a big challenge to our Grassroot Sports.
Coach Harry said this after Match Day 1 on Thursday on the ongoing Bundesliga Trial Evaluation, which is aimed at scouting for ‘young potential attackers’, hosted by Yobo Football Club in Collaboration with Billionaires Football Academy.
The event is a 5-Day Scouting Programme portrayed at looking for potent strikers, whose hunger is goalscoring, with Agents from the German Bundesliga viewing the games, so as to enable them, scout, for sharp and goal machine attackers. The event kicked off on Thursday at the Soccer Temple Stadium in Agege, Lagos State.
In an interview with Sports247 after Thursday’s Match Day 1 games, the Event’s representative, Coach Harry lamented that so far, so good, the teams competing has been playing well but he and the Bundesliga agent hasn’t been able to find a good goal-scoring machine who can score goals and terrorize defenders. He also singled out the attacking position in our Grassroot football as one of the major challenges we are facing today, as most attackers in our Grassroot finds it very difficult to put pressure on the defenders as well as to put the ball at the back of the net.
“If you can see, there are not many attackers that can really mount pressure on the defenders, as you expect. The games are really interesting, but the attackers are really finding it difficult to score goals and that is a big challenge.
The Scouting Event Coordinator while still speaking with Sports247, criticized the NFF for not doing enough in helping Grassroots Football in the country, saying that the NFF mostly rely on Foreign-based players, without putting much effort into helping the development of Grassroot football in Nigeria.
“Our Grassroot is not really moving forward. The LMC, LCBA, the Government, in short NFF should specifically base this thing on how to help run the Grassroot. They are not really focusing on the Grassroots. All they are doing is just replying on home-based players, it won’t work”.
“You look at a country like Holland, all their transformation is in the Grassroot. You can see, they have a specific Formation, you can never see them going back from that, which is the 4-3-3 formation. And in the Grassroot, they teach their players their style of play, they want players that can run, attack, and play to their standards. But here, we only want players from abroad, how do you think that would work, if you don’t look at Grassroot. The Media should also assist the NFF in moving around schools, footballing competitions, so as to get these talents, he added”.
Coach Harry also admitted that our National Team should have a standard formation, which everyone, including the coach, would abide on, siting ‘Holland’ again as a case study, with their Diamond Formation, which all their National teams abide on.
