One player who is on the lips of every Nigerian as he shone brightly was Emmanuel Michael as Nigeria’s U17 male national team, the Golden Eaglets secured a place in the African U17 Nations Cup. Many thanks to their superlative performance during the just concluded WAFU B U17 tournament held in Ghana as they surpassed supper teams like Cote D’Ivoire and fellow finalist, Burkina Faso.
The 16-year-old Eaglet’s defender, Michael was named the MVP of the U17 Nations Cup qualifying tournament after he was named man of the match on three occasions and capped it up by scoring three free-kick goals to propel the lads to victory.
Assistant coach of the Golden Eaglets, Yemi Olanrewaju claimed everything Michael did was planned as the technical crew took time to school him on free kicks. The second in command identified the potential of the lad and in turn, gave kudos to Nduka Ugbade for a job well done.
“He got it right on the training ground. Everything he did was planned. We know he can hit the ball very well. A regular African player puts power before accuracy. Nduka Ugbade actually did a lot on the lad because, during training, he spent a lot of time on how to play free kicks. We spent time modeling that boy.
“You could see that anytime we had free kicks, we are already celebrating. Ugbade really spent time explaining these things to the boy and he got it.”
The Simoiben Academy talent stole the show and won the heart of spectators in Ghana with his three goals and man of the match. This shows that the free-kick specialist is one of, if not the hottest, property in this Golden Eaglets era.
