By Albert Akota
Following the poor performance at WAFU B Tournament in Togo, Golden Eaglets’ technical crew would continue screening of new players at the NFF/FIFA Goal Project Pitch in Abuja.
“Old boys’ who won bronze medal at the tournament in Togo, are expected to resume training in due course while new players desirous to be part of the team would have the chance to undergo the rigours of screening starting from Thursday, May 1, 2014.
On the last count, about 4,000 players have gone through the screening and the exercise was barely two weeks before the team travelled to Togo for the tournament where they finished third behind Benin and Mali.
But officials said it was imperative to look at fresh talents in order to strengthen the team ahead of greater challenges.
Head Coach, Emmanuel Amuneke, said the tournament in Togo gave the coaching crew the ample opportunity to gauge players’ response to competition as well as their general attitude and conduct.
The former Nigerian international said efforts would be geared towards getting a pool of 50 talented players that would be registered for the qualifiers as well as the 2015 CAN Under-17 Championship in Niger.
“We would use the next two weeks to look at new players because we need to reinforce the team as it were,” Amuneke said.”Our objective is to have a pool of good players that we can draw from time to time because this is a long journey.”
The Golden Eaglets would begin their 2015 African Under-17 campaign in July and have been drawn bye into the second round to meet the winner of the first round clash between Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo.
