Ahead of the U-17 World Cup games in India, head coach of the Flamingos, Bankole Olowookere has revealed that his team are ready as they have learnt from the African qualifiers game as they seek to go all out for the prestigious trophy.
The team safely arrived Istanbul before connecting to Kocaeli yesterday and had since settled down at Dedeman Hotel to continue their preparations.
He made this known in an interview with CAF online.com as he admits that it’s time to make Nigeria proud after several group stage miseries.
The Naija Ratels boss said, “We’ve done a lot to cover some gaps that were spotted during the African qualifiers. We’ve also been able to work up to the international standard, going to the World Cup, which is different from playing in the qualifiers, we just try to raise our game,”
“We’ve also kept our fitness and fixed everything needed for the girls to be in shape for the World Cup.”
“Going to Turkey, it’s good for the girls to gain exposure because it’s normal, seeing that most are from Secondary School and it’s deemed fit by the Federation that they get this exposure outside Nigeria.”
“Camping in Turkey isn’t just going to be a jamboree, we will have to acclimatize and probably have some friendly matches to tune up the team, just to ensure it is nothing short of international standard.”
“Moving to another place, we get good exposure that would count as experience at the World Cup.”
After three weeks of intensive training in Abuja, Olowookere, has selected a 21-final squad from the invited provisional list of 35.
