By Wale Ajayi
Minister of youth and sports, Sunday Dare paid an impromptu visit to the Flying Eagles camp on Wednesday, charging them to go and conquer West Africa in their quest to qualify for the Under 20 Africa Cup of Nations.
Dare was excited with what he saw in camp and has appealed to the boys to put behind them their personal worries and stay focused for the task ahead.
WHAT REALLY ARE MY FEARS?
The Flying will depart Abuja by flight on Friday for Lagos and will travel by road for almost 7hours on a very bad road, same day, to Cotonou, venue of the Under 20 WAFU championship.
What this means, is that the team will have only Saturday to shake off the jetlag before their first match against perennial rivals Cote d’Ivoire in the first match of a strong qualifying group that also has West African super powers, Ghana.
NOW THIS IS WHAT BAFFLES ME
How much will it cost the NFF to fly the team from Abuja to Cotonou on Friday?. I did a quick investigation and discovered that the team can actually depart on Friday morning by flight to arrive Cotonou two hours later.
That way, they can have enough rest on Friday night, train on Saturday and play on Sunday.
It took the NFF one month to the competition to appoint Laddan Bosso as chief coach of the team. In all sincerity, Bosso has done his utmost to assemble some of the best footballers within the age bracket for the competition, it is now left for the NFF to rally round the team to succeed.
On our part, we won’t stop ringing the alarm bell
