This Day (Lagos)
2 November 2009
Lagos — FIFA technical group has rated Nigeria high in the ongoing U-17 World Cup declaring that they will go far in the competition. Jean-Marie Conz, a member of FIFA Technical study group yesterday said Nigeria which did not start out impressively had gone ahead to draw with Germany despite being two zero down at half time but added that there were no weak teams in the tournament.
"On the tournament, what we can say statistically, in terms of goals, we have 2.61 goals per game, which is a little less than the last tournament. This is because all the teams are better organized and it means the level of football has increased.
"FIFA helps in development of football and we can see with this that we are on the right path. When we talk of developmental football, we can see this year there is no weak team.
"We can see that lot of the teams like Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and Nigeria have good organization and should automatically be without difficulty in the next round of 16. For Nigeria it was a difficult start, they were two zero down at half time and by second half they were back to reckoning. They drew against Germany and beat Argentina, we can see a big potential and I am sure we will hear something about Nigeria in this tournament", Conz said.
He stated that the aim of the technical study group which is made of eight persons in this tournament with two present at each match, is to see a player with potentials to develop. "We want to see a good player but not just in terms of speed and shooting hard but the potential to develop in the future.
"The big surprise is the ouster of Brazil and Holland, it is difficult to loose countries like these in a tournament of this nature, but we can see that we don't have weak teams, meaning everybody has to work. It is very hard to be in the World Cup and be in good position in this tournament. Brazil scored only three goals in this tournament and for a team like Brazil that is not enough.
We have to teach people in football competition to go in offence; this is a very important advice to the coach and the people in the federation to help develop the football", he said.
He stated that the group's job is to look out for the best goalkeeper, best player and the top scorer. At the end of the day a report will be submitted to FIFA, which will then put it in a booklet form and send to all the confederations to help all the federations in the world.
"For this level of Under-17 competition, we need to talk about the fair play, we have to encourage the players on the spirit of Fair Play. Sunday something unique happened, the United Arab Emirate qualified because they were better in terms of Fair Play", he added. Conz however added that virtually all the continents have representatives in the last 16 stage of the game. "So, it is a good result for Europeans, but in Africa we have Nigeria and Burkina Faso".
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