Chukwu, Bassey Applaud Eaglets’ Commitment

Two members of the  influential technical committee of the Nigeria Football  Federation(NFF), Chairman Christian Chukwu(MFR) and Etubom Paul Bassey,  has given their tacit  approval  to  the preparations of the Golden Eaglets  ahead of Saturday’s  grand finale match of the 2013 Morocco CAN Under-17  Championship to be played at the Grande Stade de Marrakech.

Chukwu(MFR) and Bassey  who were at the team’s final training session on Friday at the Stade  Zarktoni , noted that the  high spirit  within the rank and file of the team  even as they commended the coaching crew led by Manu Garba (MFR)  for correcting some of the obvious lapses in their last game against Tunisia.

Chukwu, who led Nigeria to a historic maiden African Cup of Nations glory in 1980, said here that the Golden Eaglets have the wherewithal to conquer the continent at their level on Saturday everything being  equal.

“As members of the technical committee, we rubbed minds with the coaches based on what we observed during their last game against Tunisia and we are very happy that they have corrected them during training today,” said the former coach of the Super Eagles.

 “Of course, it is now left for the players to go out on Saturday against Cote d’Ivoire and put all of these into good use.“ If they are able to do this, I believe  victory would be ours because they have shown at this tournament that they are the best attacking team  and if they go all out against Cote d’Ivoire, I have no doubt that Nigeria would win,” he noted.

The same sentiment was echoed by foremost sport journalist and a Confederation of African Football (CAF), General Coordinator: “As a Nigerian, I have a high expectations and anything short the cup would not be good enough. I have had the opportunity of seeing at a glance the technical report of CAF about this championship and the Golden Eaglets are by far the best team.

“But having said that, the boys need to go all out and avenge their earlier defeat against Cote d’Ivoire because that is the only team that has dented our record. We saw their training session and I was
happy that the coaches did not take anything for granted.”

Bassey further commended the high spirit  and ambience within the team saying, the confidence amongst the players, the coaches and the backroom staff is very infectious and healthy for a match of this magnitude.