Manu To Fortify Golden Eaglets

Golden Eaglets' coach Manu Garba (MFR) has indicated that more youngsters would be given fresh opportunities to fight their way into the team ahead of the 2013 World Cup in UAE after watching his high-flying boys choked by losing 5-4 on penalties to Cote d'Ivoire after a pulsating 1-1 draw in the finale of the 2013 CAN Under-17 Championship on Saturday.

Speaking against the backdrop of  the  team's relative success at the 10th CAN U-17 Championship in Morocco where they finished as runner-up with  striker Success  Isaac emerging as the top scorer ,Manu said his boys failed to live  up to expectations for obvious reasons.

"Frankly, whatever happens, we should still be thankful to God since we didn’t bargain for this,” a philosophical Manu said. “We wanted to go back to Nigeria with the Cup and gold medal and we created many chances and if we had taken them today, the story would have been different.”

He added: “We are going to fortify the team despite the fact that some of these players secured us the ticket to the World Cup and we are going to look for quality replacements before going for the World Cup in the UAE.”

Meanwhile, Manu has absolved Malian referee Keita Mahamadou of any blame after he sent off defender Izu Omego for an off the ball attack on Ivorian Aboubacar Keita.

He noted that Mahamadou who allegedly made some comical calls against the Golden Eaglets was right in his decision albeit he upset his team: “If I were the referee, I would have given the player the red card because he retaliated by elbowing the player which is not good enough because it affected the way we played in the last 25 minutes.”