Nigeria's U17: Asking the Brain to Think....

[Enugu II]

Read below on our U17 and addressing recent criticisms:

http://eaglecity.blogspot.com/2015/11/n ... think.html

[geminikoat]

Very thoughtful and insightful write up.

[YUJAM]

Well written and researched EII. For me, the U-17 WC is not a credible tournament. Perhaps it is a good developmental tourney as it allows promising players to get exposure but that's where it ends for me.

I watched the game today and if I were to guess I'd say a few of the players on display today on both sides, no 11 for Mali and no 14 for Nigeria, looked overage to me. My feeling is that some African nations have figured a way around the MRI test. This is not to say that age cheating is as rampant as it once was. Many of the players looked like real youngsters but others seemed to be look far more physically developed than what one would expect of a normal 17 yr old or under

[Shownoja]

Excellent article. Do you mind if I share it on Facebook?

[Cellular]

Read below on our U17 and addressing recent criticisms:

http://eaglecity.blogspot.com/2015/11/n ... think.html

Prof., as always, excellent piece.

[Kabalega]

Well, keep asking!

From the OP's link.....

It is difficult to explain why a certain group of countries has continued to dominate the senior World Cup. However, one thing is common among those countries and that is World Cup winners often base an estimated 70-100% of their winning squad on players who are based at home. The only exception were the winning squads of 1994, 1998, and 2002. Those three squads, however, had close to 50% of their squad drawn from home. All other World Cups have squads crafted from players drawn from their home league. Why may this be important? It means that many of those players play for a few select clubs and have trained together. That should never be underestimated particularly in a world where national teams only train together a few days before important games.

wholeheartedly! You will be surprised at how many people do not get the importance of this fact at team building.
The likes of Vancity who advocate for fielding the best players from far flung parts of the world who only get together 6 times a year and expect to win things are deluded.

It is a team sport! So average players who play as a team, are more likely to add up to way more than the sum of a talented group, of egotistic players who only get together several times a year.

How do you build a national team? Keep units of players together for as long as possible!

Germany and Spain figured it out. All that a successful program has to do, is to analyze what it takes to build a team of champions, and adapt/enhance the right traits "as best you can."

A fundamental flaw with the article is that it implies/assumes that "biological" changes from 17-20 years old have a negative effect on players. How do you make that leap?

Many changes during that time, have a positive effect on player's game.
BTW, what exactly, do you mean by "biological changes?"

I can make an argument against this by presenting CR7 and Messi who by far are currently the best players in the world!
So many factors play a role into a talented U-17 player


There are way more changes that occur to players that affect their game for the better.

FYI, a 17yr old and younger African, is way more developed than most 17yr olds around the world and it has little to do with their biological development, but everything else, that you ignored!

[Cristao II]

Good article. There is a certain CE that should learn from this on how to put forward and construct an argument.

[FATHER TIKO]

At the youth level, the number of hours playing football is a huge plus. Here, I urge you to read one or both of the following books -- Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Anders Ericsson's The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. In Nigeria, youth life is hardly as regimented or regulated as in several Western countries. Nigerian youths play football any where and at any time for several hours a day unsupervised and, thus, accumulates needed hours of practice and expertise. In several Western countries, parents have to often take their children to practice for few hours and in perhaps 2-3 days a week. Compare those few hours of practice to hours of practice in Nigeria. Of course, hours spent in the academies in Western countries may mirror the hours in Nigeria but how many players are in academies from which U17 players will be selected? Thus, on hours alone, there should be no surprise that youth players in Nigeria would be at a prime performance level.

Here, for me, is the answer for those skeptics who keep spouting age-cheating as the reason for Nigeria's prowess at cadet level football.

I've always argued it: pick a random Nigeria high school team today and match them against any random high school team from any country in the world; and the Nigeria team would be favourites to win.
Cadet level football is more about raw talent.

Nigeria suffers at the higher level due to extra-field factors being decisive.

[green4life]

Good piece by Prof. From reading your article, it's conceivable that one or two kids may have slipped through the cracks but it's no where what it used to be due to MRI. Also, the fact that CAF doesn't allow replacement of players who failed the test at the u17 AFCON serves as an effective deterrent to further mitigate the use so overage kids. Lastly, the proof will be in the pudding which means we hopefully should start yielding some small dividends by the next WC, if we qualify. Cheers.

[Enyi]

The reason why these youth players don't go on and win world cups is purely due to the Mikel factor......Yaya Toure said as much in his recent interview, an African player thinks short term, sign that euro contract anyway you can find it and relax. As long as you can afford to live - STOP.

Like Mikel, why not fight to be the best player in the world? They just settle for comfortable. That's why am happy that Kelechi is listening to Yaya although he is a bit stubborn.

This is compounded by the fact that we are yet to have a world class coach to guide the talent free hand.

[green4life]

The reason why these youth players don't go on and win world cups is purely due to the Mikel factor......Yaya Toure said as much in his recent interview, an African player thinks short term, sign that euro contract anyway you can find it and relax. As long as you can afford to live - STOP.

Like Mikel, why not fight to be the best player in the world? They just settle for comfortable. That's why am happy that Kelechi is listening to Yaya although he is a bit stubborn.

This is compounded by the fact that we are yet to have a world class coach to guide the talent free hand.

Ironically, Mikel is one of the worst examples to use because he has had a fruitful career at the highest level for 10yrs and he's still under 30. Yes, he hasn't won APOY or ballon d'or but if all these up and coming Naija stars can have his career, we will win a lot of trophies in Africa and will go far in WC's. The problem is not Mikel but quantity of quality which we lack. Mikel is quality but how many such pure quality players does the SE have?

[airwolex]

For two weeks now, we've had anti ageologist start threads and argue themselves to death, willfully skirting the truth and proffering all sorts of postulations to one of football's greatest mysteries (if you can call it that) How is it possible that an average playing soccer Nation like Nigeria can dominate the under 17's in such a complete manner that has never been seen in any other levels of soccer.

I am not here to rain on your parade, I think if grown men want to celebrate a pedigree (Goldleaf take note) built on 25 to 27 year olds bashing young kids around for over 20 years, that's their issue but the fact is that all these theories - Blacks develop quicker, African kids are treated like adults etc - while cute, are simply signs of a guilty conscience. The basic fact is that Nigerians dominated from 1985 to at least 2009 because they played grown men against kids...we all know this, some choose to ignore it just for 2 weeks of chest bumping and false patriotic fervor.

For your information, there are 100 million Afro Brazillians, more than the population of 95% of Sub Saharan Countries, and yet when Brazil (a legit soccer juggernaut) meets Nigeria, their Blacks - who by the way are just as impoverished, and accepting the hypothesis offered by Enugu, develop just as fast as ours - seem powerless against us.

There are also massive African populations in soccer powerhouses like France, Netherlands, Portugal and England but they don't seem to be able to stand up consistently to Nigeria and indeed other European countries.

Bottom line, we cheated shamelessly for over two decades (let's leave the last two tourneys out for arguements sake) It's preposterous to credit our success to anything but this.

[Damunk]

For two weeks now, we've had anti ageologist start threads and argue themselves to death, willfully skirting the truth and proffering all sorts of postulations to one of football's greatest mysteries (if you can call it that) How is it possible that an average playing soccer Nation like Nigeria can dominate the under 17's in such a complete manner that has never been seen in any other levels of soccer.

I am not here to rain on your parade, I think if grown men want to celebrate a pedigree (Goldleaf take note) built on 25 to 27 year olds bashing young kids around for over 20 years, that's their issue but the fact is that all these theories - Blacks develop quicker, African kids are treated like adults etc - while cute, are simply signs of a guilty conscience. The basic fact is that Nigerians dominated from 1985 to at least 2009 because they played grown men against kids...we all know this, some choose to ignore it just for 2 weeks of chest bumping and false patriotic fervor.

For your information, there are 100 million Afro Brazillians, more than the population of 95% of Sub Saharan Countries, and yet when Brazil (a legit soccer juggernaut) meets Nigeria, their Blacks - who by the way are just as impoverished, and accepting the hypothesis offered by Enugu, develop just as fast as ours - seem powerless against us.

There are also massive African populations in soccer powerhouses like France, Netherlands, Portugal and England but they don't seem to be able to stand up consistently to Nigeria and indeed other European countries.

Bottom line, we cheated shamelessly for over two decades (let's leave the last two tourneys out for arguements sake) It's preposterous to credit our success to anything but this.

But who is arguing with you on the pre-2013 era?

[FATHER TIKO]

(let's leave the last two tourneys out for arguements sake)

Abeg, go ahead and explain "the domination" of 2013 & 2015.
My bros, how do you explain that mystery too?

At least we're all somewhat in agreement that age-cheating may not have been rife at those 2 tourneys.

Consider that the gulf seems even wider in 2013 & 2015 between Nigeria & your power-house football nations at cadet-level.
Please, explain this mystery.

[airwolex]

Father Tiko,

I don't agree, I'm merely tired of the whole thing. I just had to respond to Enugu's flawed postulations.

[Goldleaf]

For two weeks now, we've had anti ageologist start threads and argue themselves to death, willfully skirting the truth and proffering all sorts of postulations to one of football's greatest mysteries (if you can call it that) How is it possible that an average playing soccer Nation like Nigeria can dominate the under 17's in such a complete manner that has never been seen in any other levels of soccer.

I am not here to rain on your parade, I think if grown men want to celebrate a pedigree (Goldleaf take note) built on 25 to 27 year olds bashing young kids around for over 20 years, that's their issue but the fact is that all these theories - Blacks develop quicker, African kids are treated like adults etc - while cute, are simply signs of a guilty conscience. The basic fact is that Nigerians dominated from 1985 to at least 2009 because they played grown men against kids...we all know this, some choose to ignore it just for 2 weeks of chest bumping and false patriotic fervor.

For your information, there are 100 million Afro Brazillians, more than the population of 95% of Sub Saharan Countries, and yet when Brazil (a legit soccer juggernaut) meets Nigeria, their Blacks - who by the way are just as impoverished, and accepting the hypothesis offered by Enugu, develop just as fast as ours - seem powerless against us.

There are also massive African populations in soccer powerhouses like France, Netherlands, Portugal and England but they don't seem to be able to stand up consistently to Nigeria and indeed other European countries.

Bottom line, we cheated shamelessly for over two decades (let's leave the last two tourneys out for arguements sake) It's preposterous to credit our success to anything but this.

Chief,

The simple reason why I believe views like yours should never be taken seriously is premised on one simple fact. We live in an advancing world. Since its creation, the world has advanced nonstop. If you can answer questions on why dinosaurs no longer roam the earth and why earlier forms of transportation were discarded for quicker ones like airplanes etc then a debate can be engaged and energy can be dissipated.

Pre-WC17 and during my own childhood, our YSFON clubs excelled wherever they went in the world. They brought cups home. Nobody anywhere asked any questions about age. If the technology was not available pre-MRI to discern player age, to blame victories on cheating is useless, directionless and wasted energy. It is like saying "hey, what happened to the dinosaurs? Let's bring them back!". The dinosaurs have had their time, it is time for humans. Pre-MRI, Post-MRI, the result is still the same, Nigeria still rules the world. Pre WC U17, YSFON ruled. We are in the WC U17 era and Nigeria is ruling. Therefore, if that fact is proven, doubters are the one who have the problem. That is why I called the doubting malaise pathological. With all due respect, the doubter simply has a mind that refuses to accept victory, achievement and progress. In the most helpful way possible, that mind needs treatment. It is like someone saying today horses were very fast in human transportation and maybe if given the chance, they would have been faster than motor cars. Horses ruled, now motor cars rule. All of us must just have to learn to accept it and live with it. As the English man will say, fact has been proven, just bloody get on with it!

[cic old boy]

Enugu, while your argument is well-presented, it looks to me like you have taken a certain position and then tried to justify it.

For e.g. when you make the claim that having majority home-based players could be a reason for our success and justify it with WC senior level winners, you try to explain away the exceptions to that rule. There was a time when at senior level 99% of our players were home-based. We weren't world beaters then.

The argument about hours of practice is also a bit dodgy. In the majority of the Western footballing nations, I think their U-17s put in a lot of hours of practice and are exposed to better quality coaching than ours. I can't see how hours of practice make a significant difference where the variations are minimal, unless you are talking YEARS of practice! Are we winning b/c our "boys" have been playing the game a lot longer than the opponents?

To have won the U-17 WC for a record number of times, to have two African countries in the final, when we continue to underachieve at the real business end of the game, raise serious questions about whether what we are doing is above board.

The two reasons I think we are successful at this level and fail at senior level are that we are using older players, and at youth level the game is not as tactically sophisticated as it is at senior level.

[FATHER TIKO]

Enugu, while your argument is well-presented, it looks to me like you have taken a certain position and then tried to justify it.

For e.g. when you make the claim that having majority home-based players could be a reason for our success and justify it with WC senior level winners, you try to explain away the exceptions to that rule. There was a time when at senior level 99% of our players were home-based. We weren't world beaters then.

The argument about hours of practice is also a bit dodgy. In the majority of the Western footballing nations, I think their U-17s put in a lot of hours of practice and are exposed to better quality coaching than ours. I can't see how hours of practice make a significant difference where the variations are minimal, unless you are talking YEARS of practice! Are we winning b/c our "boys" have been playing the game a lot longer than the opponents?

To have won the U-17 WC for a record number of times, to have two African countries in the final, when we continue to underachieve at the real business end of the game, raise serious questions about whether what we are doing is above board.

The two reasons I think we are successful at this level and fail at senior level are that we are using older players, and at youth level the game is not as tactically sophisticated as it is at senior level.

CIC, abeg, answer the question I asked airwolex:
How come in 2013 & 2015, when the "over-age" factor is at its minimum, Nigeria's dominance has even increased?
If age-cheating created the dominance of the past, it seems logical to expect Nigeria's dominance should decrease as age-cheating decreases.
So how come Nigeria's dominance seems to be increasing?

[cic old boy]

CIC, abeg, answer the question I asked airwolex:
How come in 2013 & 2015, when the "over-age" factor is at its minimum, Nigeria's dominance has even increased?
If age-cheating created the dominance of the past, it seems logical to expect Nigeria's dominance should decrease as age-cheating decreases.
So how come Nigeria's dominance seems to be increasing?

My broda, I'm the wrong guy to ask b/c I think we are still cheating.

[marko]

The raw talent has never been questioned in Nigeria, its the development after they win these youth tournaments, something where Nigeria is still severely lacking, if Nigeria domestic league were as strong as their european counterparts, then we will start to see results, thats the key to Nigeria performing well at senior world cup, the domestic league has to be well funded and top class

[amafolas]

Good piece by Prof. From reading your article, it's conceivable that one or two kids may have slipped through the cracks but it's no where what it used to be due to MRI. Also, the fact that CAF doesn't allow replacement of players who failed the test at the u17 AFCON serves as an effective deterrent to further mitigate the use so overage kids. Lastly, the proof will be in the pudding which means we hopefully should start yielding some small dividends by the next WC, if we qualify. Cheers.

from that MRI, it is possible that all the players might be overage, but it would be rare to be grossly overage.

Paul George, an NBA player, grew 2 inches in height post college at the age of 22. I am sure if they had done the MRI of his wrist at 22 he would have soundly passed, probably even passed at 23.

The way the MRI is, all I can glean from the results are that anyone who passes, is most likely to be under 22 years old. It reallys tells us little about whether they are U17 or not. It also is however an excellent rule-out test meaning if you fail, the chance that you are a true U-17 is about 1%. i.e. Possible but rare. (my guess is that actual rule out rate is higher than 1% in some population)

Either way, I will take our players (and those of many of other countries) likely being between 16 and 22 now in the post MRI era than the 17 - 30 in the pre-MRI era.

[FATHER TIKO]

My broda, I'm the wrong guy to ask b/c I think we are still cheating.

CIC, na wa for you o...

[Cellular]

For two weeks now, we've had anti ageologist start threads and argue themselves to death, willfully skirting the truth and proffering all sorts of postulations to one of football's greatest mysteries (if you can call it that) How is it possible that an average playing soccer Nation like Nigeria can dominate the under 17's in such a complete manner that has never been seen in any other levels of soccer.

I am not here to rain on your parade, I think if grown men want to celebrate a pedigree (Goldleaf take note) built on 25 to 27 year olds bashing young kids around for over 20 years, that's their issue but the fact is that all these theories - Blacks develop quicker, African kids are treated like adults etc - while cute, are simply signs of a guilty conscience. The basic fact is that Nigerians dominated from 1985 to at least 2009 because they played grown men against kids...we all know this, some choose to ignore it just for 2 weeks of chest bumping and false patriotic fervor.

For your information, there are 100 million Afro Brazillians, more than the population of 95% of Sub Saharan Countries, and yet when Brazil (a legit soccer juggernaut) meets Nigeria, their Blacks - who by the way are just as impoverished, and accepting the hypothesis offered by Enugu, develop just as fast as ours - seem powerless against us.

There are also massive African populations in soccer powerhouses like France, Netherlands, Portugal and England but they don't seem to be able to stand up consistently to Nigeria and indeed other European countries.

Bottom line, we cheated shamelessly for over two decades (let's leave the last two tourneys out for arguements sake) It's preposterous to credit our success to anything but this.

That is simply not true!

Brazil is actually suffering from what many Brazilians call the "Europenization" of Brazil. They have argued that the reason their national teams are no longer dominating is because less and less of the Favelas are being co-opted into their national teams.

Same argument is being made in the States that the urban kids are not being recruited into mainstream soccer.

I don't know if we cheat and if we are cheating, how we are beating the MRI machines. But the reason we are not able to translate our U17 successes into the senior teams has little to do with the alleged cheating at the U17 level. Prof. EnuguII has demonstrated that even countries that supposedly don't cheat, and have better FAs still find it difficult to translate their dominance even in the U21 level into WC championships.