U17 AFCON: Morocco could be a threat to Nigeria, others, says Ugbade

Head coach of Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets Nduka Ugbade has said that Morocco junior side could a threat in the Under-17 AFCON championship.

The draw for the tournament were conducted on Wednesday and the 5-time World Champions was placed in group B alongside Morocco, Zambia and South Africa.

Former Nigeria International spoke extensively about each team in the competition and the target of Nigeria reaching the next U17 FIFA World Cup in Peru.

“It’s quite interesting that it’s like this now because the die is cast and there is no going back.

Morocco is known from North Africa and their football is known to me very well considering what they’ve done in the World Cup, I think their U17 will be motivated to do better as well.

Recently they’ve been engaged in friendly matches for this competition.

Then, the issue of South African football has gone exploded into a beautiful footballing nation, that one too is something that makes us worried a bit.

Zambia is always known for good football and these three nations are from the altitude so they will have enough strength, speed, endurance and power to compete but knowing that we have won the World Cup 5 times and we are favourites, so we will not look at our group alone.

The first thing we have to counter is to win our first match, then the second match and probably win the 3rd match then qualify for the next stage, win that as well go further to establish a kind of authority in the semi-final and see if we get to the final what will happen.

We know if we win the 4th match surely we’ve gotten to the semi-final and qualified for the World Cup.

It will very interesting to know that the likes of Algeria, Senegal and Congo are in groups in Cameroon, Mali, and Burkina Faso, their stories cannot leave our memory, they are very strong.

At the WAFU tournament, we met Burkina Faso in the final and again we are not going to remove Congo.

If you are going to this kind of competition and you don’t have fear, then you’re not prepared but not that it will cripple us, it’s that, that will create unbelievable performance when we have the opportunity to face any team in the competition, this is my view on the group”, he stated.