Nigerian football suffered many setbacks in recent times with failure to qualify for many events cutting across male and female football as well as all age groups but the coach of fast-rising Liqui Moly side Ucheckukwu Ugwu has largely blamed “transparency” for the misfortunes of the U17 in performing at the big stage recently.
“For me, it’s about being transparent and truthful. Here (Liqui Moly), we don’t care about tribe, religion or where you’re coming from, even height some times, what’s relevant for us is your talent and attitude,” Uche told Sports247.
“If National team coaches at the grassroots level imbibe this, we shouldn’t be suffering at this level. I don’t know how it is done but I’ve witnessed trimming down from over 6000 to 80, I had 8 players in the team and it became an issue. Some complained about how only one team had a huge 8 players and I wonder why that mattered. The important thing was that the boys were good enough to make it to the team that far but people made claims that we bribed our way and our players started gradually getting dropped,” he explained.
“We discover these players very early, expose them as well so if we produce as many as 5 players for the U17 it shouldn’t be a problem. We played the National league NLO 2 with players as young as 16 years,” he added.
Former U17 captain to the 2019 U17 World Cup in Brazil was a product of the team and had been playing in the NLO since 2016 which shows how young he was and the exposure he had gotten to warrant his place in the team and the coach believes that’s his platform for the lads. U17 World Cup winner in Dubai, Okon Samuel was also a product of the club and Ucheckukwu believes tribe, religion, or how many players a club has should not be a factor while encouraging transparency from National grassroots coaches.
Ucheckukwu Ugwu has been in the coaching business for years in 2004 precisely, in Asaba. Attended NIS in 2007 as well as taking attachment courses with FK Haugesund in the Norwegian Premier League and Go Ahead Eagles in the Netherlands. With numerous accolades in Nigerian Grassroot events as well as promoting sides through the ranks of the Nigerian League to the point of having two teams-Collin Edwin FC and Liqui Moly- in the NLO 1, currently seeking promotion to the NNL.
