Nigerian youth teams have failed to serve as feeder sides to the Super Eagles, after the era of the Golden Eaglets team that represented Nigeria at the 2015 U-17 World Cup, which brought to limelight the likes of Samuel Chukwueze, Kelechi Nwakali, and Victor Osimhen. The situation borders on flawed recruitment process of players, quality of coaches, and the desperation to win-at-all-cost, CHRISTIAN OKPARA reports.
Most countries train their cadet champions to take over from their elite players when their light begins to dim. In 1979, the world football governing body, FIFA, staged the first World Youth Championship, which gave teenagers from across the world, the opportunity to take their craft to the world stage.
That championship, hosted by Japan, unfurled to the world such rising stars as Djamel Menad (Algeria), Ramon Diaz, Diego Amando Maradona, and Gabriel Calderon (Argentina), who went on to dominate the global scene a few years after the championship.
Nigeria’s march to the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations final game against Cameroon was propelled by players, who a year earlier had taken the country’s U-20 team to its first major FIFA championship, the World Youth Championship, in Mexico.
Players like Chibuzor Ehilegbu, Paul Okoku, Tarila Okorowanta, Wilfred Agbonavbare, Yisa Sofoluwe, Christopher Anigala, Amaechi Otti, Humphrey Edobor, Taju Disu, Deinde Akinlotan, and Edema Benson, were some of the products of that squad, who teamed up with the 1979 class of Steven Keshi, and Sylvanus Okpalla to dominate the senior national team for over a decade.
The introduction of the U-17 World Championship in 1985, further allowed countries to blood their youngsters at a very young age, with Third World countries among the major beneficiaries of that championship.
Nigeria’s first Olympic gold medal in football, which happened at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, was championed by mostly players, who won the Japan 1993 U-17 World Championship, and also players from the 1993 U-20 national team.
These stars, who later formed what is now known as “Golden Generation” of Nigerian football, include Nwankwo Kanu, Wilson Oruma, Victor Ikpeba, Emma Amunike, Austin “Jay Jay” Okocha, Taribo West, Tijani Babangida, Celestine Babayaro, and Mobi Oparaku, were testaments to the pride of place the youth teams played in the past in building the Super Eagles to the dreaded team that it has become.
However, since the 2015 U-17 World Cup, which threw up Victor Osimhen, Samuel Chukwueze, and Kelechi Nwakali, among others, the youth teams have failed to produce shining stars for the Super Eagles.
The youth teams have struggled to come out from regional competitions like the WAFU B Championship and players of these teams usually disappear into oblivion after disappointing their followers in these competitions.
Recently, the country took another set of U-17 footballers to the WAFU B Championship where they could not fly, losing to Cote d’Ivoire in the semifinal, and failing to qualify for the African U-17 Nations Cup.
What this means is that Nigeria will not be represented at the African U-17 Nations Cup, which serves as the qualifying tournament for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Again, the country has lost the opportunity to expose its youths to the highest level of cadet football in the world. These players will now lose the opportunity to display their talents on such a large canvas as the World Cup, and unless by divine intervention, they may have lost the chance to impress and join big European clubs the way their predecessors did.
So, what is the problem with the country’s youth football development programme?
Former national U-20 and U-17 Coach, Fanny Amun, said many issues are dogging the country’s youth development efforts.
According to Amun, players only graduate to higher cadres of the national team if they are good.
“There would be no need to worry if any team fails to qualify for an age-grade competition because qualifying for such tournaments is not the country’s birthright.
“What we should be looking at is the impact of such competitions on the national team. When we have top players from a team, the purpose of playing in that competition has been achieved.”
Veteran journalist, Desmond Ekwueme, said it is obvious that since 2015 (about nine years ago) the Golden Eaglets last won the FIFA U-17 World Cup, it has been difficult to package, or produce another great squad.
“The implication of this is that there is no single player after the Chile 2015 tournament that is groomed from the Golden Eaglets into the Flying Eagles, or U-23 Eagles let alone the Super Eagles.
“Of course, it isn’t as if there are no quality players among the last few sets of the team, but the national team selectors across the board have turned blind eyes to those players.
Why? The leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will always discard and distance itself from any team that fails to win a tournament at the cadet or youth categories. The players from those squads are abandoned and they disappear into thin air.
“Perhaps the win-at-all-cost syndrome driving the coaches, and NFF recklessly in tournaments is taking its toll on Nigeria football. After the 2015 class of Osimhen and Samuel Chukwueze, we may find it difficult to see a Golden Eaglets player graduate through the ranks into the Super Eagles again.”
Ekwueme said that Nigerians, including football administrators, have forgotten the real reason that FIFA established age-grade tournaments. “They’re simply to serve as feeder teams to produce players that will graduate into world champions and superstars tomorrow. Therefore, the win-at-all-cost syndrome is a crazy and destructive mentality presently ruining our football.
“For instance, Simon Cletus, a Senior Secondary School 1 (SS1) student who equally plays for Mavlon FC has been discovered in the present Golden Eaglets squad, which he captained.”
The boy’s talent should not be wasted by ignoring him just because the team that he was part of didn’t excel at the WAFU Zone B U-17 AFCON qualifiers.
“That is the beginning of where we are. The glory of Golden Eaglets is fading away because some people don’t care about players produced by the different teams in the past or the process that discovered them. But what they care about is just trophies (or winning tournaments), which they’re not even working for, or towards.”
Ekwueme said part of the problems that Nigeria has is that there are no orchestrated plans or programmes to scout, gather, groom, and develop teenagers into Golden Eaglets fold, and from there onwards into Super Eagles stars.
“We replace programs with ad hoc arrangements and crash programmes,” he added.
To arrest the slide in the country’s youth teams, Ekwueme said the nation should groom U-10 and U-15 national teams with full-time coaches. “Kids from primary school to junior secondary up to senior secondary schools should be playing games and participating in competitions.
“They should be organised to be truly for the ages mentioned. The teams should be running ones, not just assembled for competitions, or tournaments where officials invite all manner of players, many of whom are from agents, scouts, rich and influential parents, guardians and highly placed politicians.
Ekwueme also criticised the process of appointing or hiring coaches for the junior teams, saying that it has turned into a joke.
“No serious football-playing nation that wishes to succeed will employ coaches based on ethnic, religious, or sundry mundane grounds. By doing that, you sacrifice quality and sound coaches on the slab of mediocrity; you close your eyes to competence, and you turn a blind eye to professionalism. Yet such coaches can’t go for refresher courses to develop themselves; they cannot upgrade themselves or their knowledge of the sport.”
Coach Uni Dan Kakwi of Plateau United described the situation as a fall-out of the hijack of the junior national teams by agents and politicians.
According to Kakwi: “Since 2015, a set of agents have hijacked the youth teams, jeopardising street football, and state-to-state scouting.”
The coach said because the league clubs are not producing top-quality talents from their youth teams, the coaches are forced to resort to private academies to source players.
These academies are organised purely for profit, he said, adding, “Grooming world-class players under such compromised rubbles is not feasible. That is why our only option now is to hope that some dejected Diasporan Nigerians that have grown desperate to play international football will opt to play for Nigeria.”
Former Super Eagles’ Coach, Samson Siasia, said the scouting process is one of the problems that is impeding the selection of talented players for age group competitions.
Siasia advised the NFF to change the scouting system, saying that asking hundreds of players to gather in Abuja for screening is wrong.
According to Siasia, “The NFF should zone the scouting programme and allow coaches from each zone to monitor competitions and select three or four best players that they think are good enough, and suitable for what the head coach wants. They then send the good ones to Abuja to join other selected players from the different zones. The current scouting system will never get you the best players.”
Sports lawyer, Sabinus Ikewuaku, said the solution to failures recorded by the junior national teams in recent times lies with the NFF.
According to him, until the NFF owns the youth teams and ensures that only qualified players make the teams, Nigeria will continue to record failures in competition.
“We are complaining that players no longer graduate from the youth teams to the Super Eagles when we know that the players that represent us in these age-grade competitions are not the country’s best.
“A couple of years ago we had reports of a top Department of State Services (DSS) official allegedly forcing his son on one of the coaches. The result was that a more talented player was dropped from the team for the ‘big man’s son.’ And you ask, where is the boy now? He has moved on after enjoying himself in the national team.
“There are coaches in the youth teams who have grown rich from what they make from players that seek to make their teams. This happens because so many people are involved in the racket.
“We have super agents, whose players must make every of the country’s youth teams because they have the money to throw around. These players are usually sold to obscure leagues in some distant countries, where they end their careers before they even begin.
“As I said, unless the NFF rises to its responsibility and ensures that only top quality talents make the youth teams, the youth teams will not produce good players for the Super Eagles.”
