President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Aminu Maigari has congratulated the Under-15 National Team for its victory at the 2nd African Youth Games which recently ended in Gaborone, Botswana.
Aminu Maigari
The Nigeria boys defeated hosts Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Swaziland, while drawing with Mali in –between, to emerge the best at the continental games.
Speaking from the United States of America (USA), where he is with the Super Eagles at their final training camp ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil, Maigari affirmed that the U-15 boys will grow to become the Super Eagles in the near future, if they maintain their sense of dedication and discipline.
“I’m overwhelmed by the performance of the U-15 boys, though I must say that the NFF expected it, going by the investment we have been making and the attention we have been paying to youth football development.
“At the inception of this administration, we decided to review the Under-13 National Project, and made it a quarterly programme. The players from the U-13 programme graduated to U-15 boys, and eventually became the Under-17 boys that won a record fourth FIFA U-17 World Cup for Nigeria in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year.”
Maigari stated that the administration has continued to improve on the U-13 programme, seeing that it is the bedrock of development.
“The U-17 boys that won the World Cup in UAE are now the bulk of the U-20 team, Flying Eagles. In no time, they will graduate to the U-23 team and then the Super Eagles.
“For us, that is the kind of systematic development that can sustain the victories that we have been achieving over the past years. Once we have that system working well, our football will continue to grow from strength to strength.”
“You can see that we are also focusing on infrastructural development, which will help these young talents to nurture and nourish their abilities and create a huge pool for our national selectors to pick good materials for the National Teams at any point in time,” he said.