Coach of Nigeria’s Flying Eagles, Manu Garba, has told New Telegraph that he is adequately prepared for the possibility of not having at his disposal the full array of his overseas-based players at next year’s CAF African Youth Championship. The tournament, which will serve as the qualifying tournament for next year’s FIFA U-20 World Cup, holding in New Zealand, takes place from March 8 to 22 in Senegal.
The Flying Eagles will compete in Group A consisting of Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo. But the tournament falls out of FIFA’s international window and clubs are not obliged to make their players available.
Manu is not expected to have problems securing the release of his Nigeria-based players for the AYC but with European clubs having shown unwillingness in the past to make their players available for the tournament, he might have a problem of securing the release of star players like Manchester City’s pair of Kelechi Iheanacho and Chidiebere Nwakali, Granada of Spain’s Isaac Success, and Tottenham Hotspur’s Musa Yahaya.
But the former Golden Eaglets coach, who led Nigeria to a record fourth FIFA U-17 World Cup success in 2013 in the United Arab Emirates, insists he won’t have any problems raising a formidable side capable of securing a ticket to New Zealand 2015, with or without his retinue of overseas-based players.
“My goal has always been to raise a very strong team that Nigerians would be proud of. That is what I promised Nigerians when I took this job and nothing has changed,” Manu said. “I have envisioned the possibility of that happening and that is why we have been working on having more than one good player for every position in the team. “No player is indispensable in this team, so Nigerians don’t have to worry about whether some of these players will be available or not.”
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