Eaglets nurse no grudge against the President — Amuneke

The Golden Eaglets and their technical crew are elated with winning a 5th title for Nigeria at the FIFA U-17  World Cup and are contended and grateful to the Presidency for recognising this gallant feat. The team’s Head Coach Emmanuel Amunike in this interview with ESTHER EGBE disclaims allegations of the team’s discontentment with the presidency 

YOU won the 5th world title at a time the government claims Nigeria is broke. There was not much appreciation like it was in the last administration. How did you feel?
The most important thing is that we have done the best and represented the country very well. ‎Nigerians were happy and appreciated what we have done. President Muhammadu Buhari appreciated the task before us and he called to encourage us before we played. We beat Mali in the final to win the trophy.

What exactly has been giving Nigeria that edge at the Under-17 level?
There is no doubt that we have talents in Nigeria. But what we have done in the last four years means that serious work in terms of coaching went into the team that won in 2013 and again in 2015. You just don’t wake up and start beating everybody. Hard work, focus, discipline and the grace of God has helped us achieve so much.

As the coach, when was your biggest moment during the tourney?
Every moment. Of course, we won and so I was happy that God helped us to pack the plane with an amazing success. It was worth it. Our responsibility as a team was to go out there and do our best. All the 24 teams that went to the tournament has one objective in mind: winning the cup. After all said and done, we made Nigeria proud.
Are Kelechi Nwakali and Victor Osimhen the best players in your team?
I don’t have to agree or disagree with people’s opinion on such matter but I think the team is not based only on Nwakali and Osimhen; we have other good players in the team. But I don’t always like to talk about individual players; we should not forget that these are players just growing up and we should not put too much pressure on them. I want all the players to work for each other; play as team and that was the only way we got the best out of them. People easily mention Nwakali and Osimhen because they have been with us for a very long time but in the process of building this team, we have seen other good players.

A lot of players passed through the process since you started in 2014. What factors determined the final 21 players you picked to represent Nigeria in Chile?
We picked players basically on what we called Three: Ability; Attitude and Approach. Apart from that, we also looked at their vision, intelligence, and above all, a player must also be eligible by passing the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Test before he can even be considered. Though I’m the head coach, it was a collective decision when picking the players and individually.

What is your reaction to the allegation that most of the players you selected came from a particular section of the country?
Frankly, this is another thing I don’t always want to talk about because my conscience is clear that we have done everything humanly possible to pick the best players and not based on where a player comes from. Last time, we had so many players from the Northern part of the country but they were not picked because they were from the North. Rather, they were picked because they were the best players available to us at that time.

How important was your participation in that tournament?
The 4-Nation Tournament in Suwon was a very good preparation for us because it gave us an insight into the quality of opposition and standard we are likely to see in Chile. We drew 1-1 with Korea; beat Brazil 2-1 and; lost 3-2 to Croatia. But we were happy with the response of the players because they were able to show some of the things we had been teaching them in training. We are so glad, we make Nigeria proud again.

What is your coaching philosophy?
I want my players to be responsible and enjoy their game. Football is an art. Football talent is a gift from God and I want my players to be able to express their talent and be disciplined while expressing themselves. I love my team to be well organised though it is sometimes difficult because of the level of assimilation of players at this age category