txj wrote:
1977: Did not participate
1979:
RD. 1: Nigeria vs Gambia: w/o
RD. 2: Nigeria vs Cameroon: 1-1; 2-0. Aggt. 3-1
S/FINAL: Nigeria vs Guinea: 0-1; 1-1. Aggr. 1-2
1981:
RD. 1: Nigeria vs Ivory Coast w/o
RD. 2: Nigeria vs Tunisia: 4-0; 1-4. Aggt. 5-4
S/FINAL: Nigeria vs Cameroon: 2-3; 0-1. Aggt. 2-4
1983:
RD. 1: Gabon vs Nigeria: 0-1; 0-2. Aggt. 0-3
Q/FINAL: Nigeria vs Zimbabwe: 3-1; 0-1. Aggt. 3-2
S/FINAL: Guinea vs Nigeria: 2-1; 0-2. Aggt. 2-3
FINAL: Ivory Coast vs Nigeria: 2-2; 1-2. Aggt. 3-4
Why is all this important?
When Nigeria first started to build teams for the FIFA U-20 Championship, the squad was drawn from secondary students. Note that this was an U-21 tournament initially.
Coached by the late Father Tiko, the foundational team was drawn from schools such as mine, Edo College. One of the prominent players I remember then was Lucky Imafidon, a talented box-to-box MF. Later would come the likes of Fred Dumbi and Prince Afejukwu...
Interestingly, from my hometown Nsukka, and living with me on the campus of University of Nigeria Nsukka, Emeka Ejimofor was drawn from the local secondary school; I believe it was St. Theresa's...
This policy of selecting from secondary schools would start to change in 1981, and by 1983, it had changed fully and Nigeria would win the African tournament and do so for three straight times!
There was no fiddling of fingers about the schools the players came from, and the most talented of them, Henry Nwosu (and maybe one of the Olukanmi brothers) were integrated directly to the SE.
Nobody wondered how they could find the correct ages of the players because they were born in the wild, raised by a pack of friendly orangutans and suddenly emerge as fully formed footballers!!!!
The characters here on CE who have made themselves enablers of cheating will have you believe Nigeria is the embodiment of the wild, ungoverned space, where nothing works...
All that is designed to create an alibi for the continued cheating in age grade tournaments by Nigeria.
Ahhh, still trying to teach history lesson or prove you can spell "Tiko"? Tiko ko, small Hyundai car ni. mssshhheeww
The highlighted part is really eating you up. Anyone with a different opinion are "enablers of cheating". You're a very sad piece of work who thinks he knows it all, from tactics to everything Nigeria.
While you think everything works in Nigeria, some of us think some are doing their best to make things work in Nigeria. We are not paining a rosy picture because it looks good, we are painting the reality that is Nigeria.
You seem to live in the past you understand little about. The same era of mercenary Principal cup players? In any case, even as you claim players were drawn from schools, yet you ridicule the ongoing effort of the NFF, with their under age related programs that actually draw players much younger than the period you're bleating and beating your hairless chest about.
You also seem to think Nigeria has constantly been on a progressive trajectory since then, so much so that we've doubled in population and every child born now have their birth certificate printed from the delivery room.
You also fail to grasp the way football has changed and the rewards now involved. Academies are now the realities and schools alone cannot be the sole builder of good footballers.
You're acting as if in the 70's and 80's Nigeria meticulously made sure the players were the age they say they were. It was taken at face value because no one paid much credence to it. It was after it became an infested sore that we started doing something about it. You think we just woke up and stated cheating from the early days of the u17 competitions?
What some of us are saying, even taking into account your historical references, is that Nigeria is not coming from a good place in terms of meticulous record keeping and the bigger Nigeria gets the more we cut corners and do things in a shambolic way.
There are challenges, even in 2018. What we should be focusing on is how we can change things but we need to honestly acknowledge the challenges instead of painting a Utopian Nigeria or comparing Nigeria to developed worlds