National U20 Flying Eagles Coach, Paul Aigbogun has appealed to the emotions of football loving Nigerians to stay calm as he works out a perfect plan that will lead to a partial overhaul of the present Flying Eagles team ahead of the under 20 World Cup in Poland.
The light skinned and Enyimba FC head coach is disappointed with his team’s fourth place finish at the just concluded Under 20 Africa Cup of Nations but he will take solace in the fact that, the competition has afforded the coaching crew a chance to assess the players in camp before the world cup proper starts in Poland.
” As a coach, i wanted to win the nations cup. We got all the support needed from the NFF to excel at this level but we lost two key attackers, Wasiu Alalade to administrative issues and Victor Boniface to injury on the eve of the competition.
These are important members of the team. Alalade was our highest goal scorer in the qualifiers while Boniface was key to our early successes. Unfortunately, we had to travel without these two and it really affected the team.
Reading most of the comments after the game has given us the confidence that we can do better in Poland. We plan to invite more young players to the team when we resume camp in March.
Akila Jesse of Plateau united is not new to us. We gave him his chance before but he didn’t impress. Others like Samuel Nnosiri of Heartland and Lawal Abayomi of MFM FC will get their chance in March.
We hope to invite players based in Nigeria or outside that have what it takes to improve our team. I am calling on sports journalists, administrators and football fans to make recommendations that will be useful to the team. Every good player will get a chance to prove himself”
Coach Paul has already opened discussions with Kingsley Michael of Perugia FC in Italy, Samuel Chukwueze of Villareal FC and a host of other talented young stars that fall within the age bracket.
He plans to embark on a tour of England, where several young Nigerian footballers with dual nationality have signified their intention to play for the Flying Eagles.
“We are hoping to convince more of these players to join the team he continued. We want to see how many of the foreign pros can join us for the SUWON tournament starting towards the end of March. This competition will afford us the opportunity to take a closer look at players in competitive games and decide if they are good or not.
Recall that we conceded less goals in normal time during the Under 20 AFCON. So it tells you that our defense is not that bad. That doesnt mean that if we see better players in that position we wont invite them.
We are committed to getting the best players with the right attitude to play for Nigeria at the world cup. We want to assure Nigerians that only players that deserve to make this team on merit will be in our final world cup squad.
Already we are working out an arrangement with Super Eagles chief coach Gernot Rohr that will see Chukwueze play for the under 20 team at the World Cup before joining his Super Eagles teammates ahead of the Nations cup.
Rohr has been very supportive and has assured that he will personally talk to the player on the possibilities.
Let’s just stay calm and hope for the best” he concluded.
