Golden Eaglets coach, Emmanuel Amuneke, will retain his position as the cadet team coach irrespective of what happened in Sunday’s final of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile, a top Nigeria Football Federation official has said.
Nigeria plays African champions Mali in Sunday’s title decider in Santiago, Chile.
Previous Eaglet coaches have often been automatically promoted to the Flying Eagles, but with disappointing results, africanFootball.com says.
John Obuh was elevated to the Flying Eagles after he guided the country to the final of the 2009 U-17 World Cup, which incidentally Nigeria hosted.
He subsequently reached the last eight of the U-20 World Cup in 2011, before he crashed out in the Round of 16 two years later.
Manu Garba won the U-17 World Cup in style in 2013, but he could only lead the Flying Eagles to the Round of 16 at this year’s U-20 World Cup in New Zealand.
The records of Obuh and Manu are insignificant for a country with two silver medals and one bronze at the FIFA U-20 World Cup.
“It is expected that the (NFF) president, Amaju Pinnick, will announce Amuneke will stay on as U-17 coach so as to build on the experience and gains of his first stint as head coach.
The arrangement of automatically promoting a coach from U-17 to U-20 has not worked because we are talking of two different levels of the game,” the official told africanFootball.com.
“Take the example of Mexico. The coach who led them to the final two years ago in Abu Dhabi is the same man that guided them to the semi-finals in Chile. There are many such examples.”
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