Manu Warns Against Overconfidence Under-17 national team, Golden Eaglets coach, Manu Garba (MFR) has reiterated his clarion call to his players to avoid underrating Sweden in Tuesday’s second match at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in United Arab Emirates, and has taken the charge a step further by ordering his boys to avoid any form of overconfidence heading into the game in Al-Ain. Hot on the heels of his initial charge to his wards to eschew any form of complacency for Tuesday’s game, following their opening 6-1 victory against defending champions, Mexico, Manu has now warned his boys against overconfidence, as they seek to reach the knockout stages of the 15th edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup. Speaking at the teams final training session and the official pre-match press conference on Monday, Manu said Saturday’s victory against Mexico is behind them and must be forgotten when they face Sweden at Khalifa Bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain from 5pm (Nigeria time) on Tuesday. Manu reminded the players about the unfortunate incident at the African U-17 Championship in Morocco, when they won their opening match 6-1 against Ghana, only to concede a 1-0 defeat to Cote dIvoire in the second match, and lost the final via penalties to the same Francophone West African country. Nigeria’s loss in the group stage against The Baby Elephants at Mohammed V Stadium, Marrakech was the team’s first in almost 30 matches and still rankles Manu as he spoke in clear terms about the need for his lads to pick the knock-out ticket against Sweden. History favours the Eaglets, since they have failed to qualify for the second round stage of any tournament only once, which was at the 10th edition in Finland 2003, and Manu believes they can move ahead if his wards stay fully focused on the mission at hand. “We want you to focus only on our match against Sweden because that is the only thing that matters to us now. Dont forget what happened to us in Morocco when we beat Ghana 6-1 in our first match but lost to Cote dIvoire in the next match. “Brazil and Italy have both qualified for the second round because they won their first two matches. We have no excuse not to follow on their footsteps by winning our second game against Sweden and I have no doubt in my mind that you can achieve it,” the Eaglets coach submitted.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 19:27:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015