3 November 2009
Abuja — The FIFA U-17 World Cup tagged 'Nigeria 2009' has lived up to expectation with 36 out of the 52 matches played, a FIFA technical official said on Monday.
Jean-Marie Conz, Head of FIFA's Technical Study Group (TSG) in the competition, said in Abuja that Nigeria had lived beyond the world football body's expectation.
"We are a group of eight people with the duty of analysing all the games, so as to give awards to the top players and then prepare a technical report for FIFA to send to its member-countries for guidance on future development.
"So far, with what we have, Nigeria 2009 has been excellent, with a fair record of an average of 2.61 goals per match," he said.
The FIFA official pointed out that the teams at the competition were better organised than those in earlier competitions, saying this promised a good future for football worldwide.
"All the teams have been well organised and in fact, better organised than before, and it is a good sign for world football," Conz said.
Conz listed Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Turkey as some of the teams with the best game organisation, saying this made them to have little difficulty in qualifying for the second round.
He also praised Nigeria's Golden Eaglets, saying they had shown the ability to end the competition with success.
"What they have done after drawing against Germany was fantastic for a team and then went on to qualify ahead of Germany is something," Conz said.
He, however, attributed the success of Nigeria and Burkina Faso, Africa's remaining representatives in the competition, to FIFA's recent programmes.
"The statistics show that Africa has only one team leading a group and one emerging as runners-up, out of the five that started the competition. But this is not bad.
"FIFA's programmes in recent times, like the 'Win in Africa' programme, have been beneficial and through this, Africa can reach the highest levels.
"Other programmes such as refereeing, grassroots development and the introduction of facilities like the artificial turf have also been of immense benefit," the FIFA official said.
FIFA statistics for Nigeria 2009 show that 94 goals have been scored from the 36 matches, with Spain scoring the highest number of nine and Algeria recording zero.
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