Coach Manu Garba's boys suffered a second consecutive defeat, the latest being a crushing 3-1 defeat to Netherlands, to book an early flight back home from Brazil but the team has taken timeout of their disappointment to appeal to their fans.
On behalf of the five-time world champions, Golden Eaglets captain Samson Tijani has apologised for the loss that halted their progress at the tournament, while revealing that the decision of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to award a late penalty to the Dutch side dampened the Nigerians morale and desire for a comeback.
“We are very sorry; we as a team to the entire Nigerians,” Tijani said in quotes obtained by Soccernet.ng.
“We tried our best but the result was down to hard luck coupled with the fact that our opponents are a very good side.
“I want to thank my team mates also, we all put our best but that’s how far God said we can go in this tournament.
“Our team had to succumb to the pressure from our opponent, we tried to calm the pressure and we were able to achieve that until the dying minutes where VAR had to suppress us with that penalty.
“That alone weakened our morale and it was already late for a come back at that minute,” said the Eaglets captain.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Religion and ethnicity don’t play football. We all saw the extra efforts made against those who qualified the team for the tournament, but who got kicked out and replaced by Quota System. The result: Buhari did not experience a repeat of his 1985 achievement, and may never be accomplished. This has become pervasive in every facet of our society today. Failure is what to expect at national levels. You can continue shooting yourself in the leg, but do not expect to excel on a limb. Booboo, good riddance…
Its a shame things ddnt go as planned,the players and managers of team Nigeria should review,learn the lessons n look forward. This set of players should work on whatever that are there and work hard to correct them,we exoext them to graduate thru d grades with the best of them qualifying to play 4 super eagles in a few years time!
Chin up lads!
Well done!
Please we don’t need your stupid apologies. You guys should know that your squad is going down in our history as the worst U17 team that has ever represented Nigeria at the world stage. Manu Garba should be held 100% for this disastrous outing. Why did he not pick the best legs by merit other than paddy man arrangement. It is a known facts the youth football is in the South South, South East & West. Why did Manu Garba bring in guys without no pace in them. Not one of our boys was super fast. I blame NFF for appointing Manu Garba after the last U20 disastrous team he coached.
Gentlmen is too late to cry u people are selfish player , everybody want to score which is not possible.And ur coach is seating on the bench withoutgiving instruction anyway not Nigeria loss bicos u win the reward is for u people.I want to ask the coach a question who recommend the goalkeeper?
It is obvious the coaching line up were just in Brazil to watch the game and not to win the trophy. All the games they won were all from a goal down or two. In just four matches they conceded nine goals. The coach should v known that the back line was faulty and do the needful. The team did not v midfielder all of them were strikers. They all wanted to score.
So disappointing sorry for yourselves.