For the third straight time, five-time world champions the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria will not feature at the U17 AFCON and one team official said the absence of coach Eboboritse Uwejamomere at pitch side played a major role in this latest disaster.
The Eaglets, who produced the likes of Victor Osimhen and Nwankwo Kanu, finished bottom of Group B with a point from two matches after they lost their opening game 2-1 to Niger before they forced defending champions Cote d’Ivoire to a 1-1 draw.
Head coach Uwejamomere could not sit on the bench because he does not have a CAF coaching license. He has UEFA coaching badges that are not recognised by CAF. He is currently doing his CAF A licence in Abuja.
A team official has now opened up only to SCORENigeria: “Coach Ebobo not being on the touchline was most certainly one of the major reasons we failed in Burkina Faso.
“His assistants who deputised in his absence could not handle the pressure, they were just shaking and totally confused.
“Such was the confusion that they got the team to play a formation they were not used to in their first game against Niger.
“What did you expect from such an experiment?”
It was further learnt that lack of exposure and failure of their top stars to scale the MRI age test did not help their cause.
“Playing some Abuja academies at the Goal Project was not adequate preparation, they needed to have played at least a couple of international matches,” the team official argued.
“Added to this was the fact that both the star striker and first-choice goalkeeper failed the MRI test.
“That really took away a lot of quality from the team and the coaches did not have the experience to quickly tackle this challenge before they had to submit their final squad for the tournament.”
