By Patrick Omorodion

The FIFA U-17 World Cup kicked off on Friday but Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets, three times world champions began another quest to wrest the  title again yesterday with a 6-1 routing of Mexico who are the defending champions.

The present team are handled by three coaches, themselves veterans of youth football at a time. Manu Garba who is the head coach was a member of the 1983 Flying Eagles squad, Nduka Ugbade captained the first set of Eaglets that made history by winning the first ever title in China in 1985 while Emmanuel Amuneke was a member of Nigeria’s All Africa Games squad to Cairo ’91.

It is on record that Nigeria is the most successful country at the U-17 level, having won on three occasions, 1985, 1993 and 2007 as well as reaching the final on the same number of times.

After the 1985 victory, Nigerians and the world, including FIFA thought that within a short time, Nigeria would become a power-house in football when all or most of the 1985 set would have graduated into the senior national team.

Even though the 1987 set lost in the final to then USSR, it was believed that by the way the team played, Nigeria was gradually getting it right. Even football great, Pele predicted after the 2005 Flying Eagles lost the final to Lionel Messi’s Argentina, that Nigeria would be the first African side to win the World Cup.

In 2009, Nigeria hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup, that was after hosting the U-20 version 10 years earlier, and the squad had some marvelous players, including one Stanley Okoro, who was wrongly dubbed Little Messi by NFF’s sokesman, Ademola Olajire, because of his supposed skill in football.

That U-17 squad looked good for  the title that year until they met Switzerland in the final in Abuja and lost 0-1.

One expected the boys to graduate into the Flying Eagles and then into the Super Eagles but that was never to be as their growth became stunted like others before them. None of the players,including the so-called ‘little’ Messi has been heard of again. However, their counterparts from Switzerland have grown into big players. Five of those Swiss players were part of the players used to prosecute the 2014 World Cup qualifier. They are Ricardo Rodriguez, a defender, Granit Xhaka and Pajtim Kasami, both midfielders as well as Haris Seferovic and Nassim Ben Khalifa, both attackers.

Infact, Rodriguez started in the game against Norway and was a subsititute in the game against Slovenia. That was after playing for Switzerland at the London 2012 Olympics. For Xhaka, apart from starring for Bayern Monchengladbach in the Bundesliga, was also part of the 2014 World Cup qualifiers and scored the lone goal in his country’s 1-0 win over Slovenia on October 15.

All these were possible because Switzerland is serious with football development and has serious academies for U-7, U-9, U-11 and U-13 uptill U-21. Theirs is not like the win-at-all-cost attitude of our football administrators who want to use victories at the youth level as  an end rather  than a means to an end. Again, one is asking, where are all the players coach John Obuh used to prosecute the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria? The same thing happened to the 2007 squad of coach Yemi Tella. Even Chrisanthus Macaulay who emerged top scorer of that comepetition is still struggling to find his feet somewhere whereas some other players he beat to that crown are making waves either for  their clubs or country.

So the lesson for us is that we should always try to use U-17 or U-20 competitions to develop young players who will form the fulcrum of our future Super Eagles like Switzerland has now done and even qualified for the 2014 World Cup before countries like England and France. And it is a good thing that the present U-17 players look relatively younger than previous ones and it is our hope that win or lose, they will grow to become future stars in the Super Eagles. That is the essence of U-17 FIFA  World Cup which we must not celebrate to high heavens each time we win it.

Sylva Eleanya lives in our minds

Exactly a year ago today, our friend and colleague, Sylva Eleanya, alias Prof, slumped at home after returning from  work  that fateful night. It’s 365 days but it looks like just yesterday. I still find it difficult to believe that ‘Prof’ with whom I shared good moments at the Vanguard is no more.

Prof is fun to be with especially at the Vanguard Canal, the liveliest joint to be, where he wriggles to the beats of Owerri music usually  dished out by Onyeka Obilor, in-charge of the Canal. You can never miss Prof’s baritone voice nor the gap-toothed laughter. He was a rallying point for all of us his friends. Our bosses like  Mideno Bayagbon, Eze Anaba and Fred Udueme were always disarmed by his mannerisms even when he erred.

Our consolation however is that his wife has been able to soldier on from where he signed off and may God continue to strengthen her in the onerous duty of molding the children into respectable adults. That was Sylva’s dream, which he ironically discussed with me on our last day that fateful night. Continue to rest in peace Prof.