Coach of the U17 team of Nigeria Manu Garba has explained why the several players born abroad who trained with his U17 team didn’t make the preliminary list of 50 players submitted for the U17 World Youth Championship in Brazil later this year.
As many as 12 players of Nigerian descent most born abroad came to the camp of the team to try out before the naming of the preliminary squad for the tournament by Garba.
According to Garba most of the players are no doubt talented but they struggled in other aspect not just on pitch where it was mostly too physical for them to cope when up against the players born here in Nigeria.
Garba explained that culture, food and weather affected most of them and that affected them and many of them had to return back to their clubs in Europe where they are mostly scholars and getting set for exams.
” We saw some very good players born abroad during training but the weather didn’t let us get the best out of them and others struggle to keep up with the physical demand normally associated with African football, few of them did but they had to return back to their clubs, some have exams and some are sorting out their future “, the coach told Owngoalnigeria.com.
” Players born abroad or playing abroad are welcome but like I have always said they have to be better than the ones we have here particularly as we have been working with these players for a while now”, the coach concluded.
