Eaglets ‘re Goal-machines!

By John Egbokhan  reporting from Dubai
A confident-Coach Manu Garba has said that the Golden Eaglets are now ready to steamroll their way and win a record fourth Under-17 World Cup title after a 4-1 thrashing of Iran at the Khalifa Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain on Tuesday.

Three goals in the first half by Samuel Okon, Kelechi Iheanacho and Captain Musa Muhammed and another by Musa Yahaya in the second half, sealed Nigeria’s berth in the quarter final and a date with Uruguay in
Sharjah on Saturday.

“I said earlier that my attack is blistering and I still maintain that it would be difficult for any team to stop us from scoring because our team loves scoring goals, “said Manu at the post-match conference.”

With 18 goals in four matches, the Golden Eaglets now have an average of 4.5 goals per match and Manu said there are still many more to come:”We don’t pretend we are an attacking team though there are still few errors but we are going to correct them as we progress”.

“I always want my team to attack and I would always improvise because this is a team where anybody can score.”

He said he rated the players eighty percent for being able to score four goals in a match ‘of this magnitude’ which is a knockout stage of a World Cup. Manu though, has some harsh words for Iranian coach, Ali Doustimehr for casting aspersion on the eligibility of his players. ”

All the players we have here passed the MRI test and we even conducted another one month before we came here and we would probably take on the Iranian coach on this,” he noted, allaying   fears over Iheanacho who copped an injury soon after scoring the second goal against Iran and his fifth in the competition.” It is a minor injury and Iheanacho should be back for the next game.”