Nigeria U17 Head Coach Speaks On Provisional Roster, MRI, Preparations For World Cup

Nigeria U17 head coach Manu Garba has revealed that the Nigeria Football Federation will submit a 50-player provisional roster for the 2019 FIFA U17 World Cup on or before September 26.

The 2013 U17 World Cup-winning manager has stressed that players must pass the MRI test to be conducted in Nigeria before their names are listed on the provisional roster.

''The confidence I have is all the 21 players passed the MRI by the time we played at the last AFCON in Tanzania but teams like Cameroon, Guinea and two other countries, two or three players were removed from their team,'' Manu Garba said.

''Even from the new ones we are sending as part of the 50-man provisional list, we will make sure we do the MRI before we send that list.

''When we get to Brazil, the FIFA Medical team will do random sampling for all the teams but they may decide to do it for each and every player but we are confident that any player we are taking there must have to pass the MRI here before we even register him provisionally.''

He added : ''I am not one hundred percent satisfied with the team but I can say we are supposed to submit a list of fifty players for the provisional registration, that is why you can see we have about 55-60 players on ground.

''Out of those number, we are supposed to submit a list of fifty players on or before 26th September, then the final 21 will come out from that list ten days before the first match''.

The Golden Eaglets players and officials will be heading to Turkey to participate in the UEFA Assist Tournament this month, before their trip to Sao Paulo for the final phase of preparations.

''So far so good, we are into the second to the last phase of preparations. The final preparation will be in São Paulo before the World Cup.

''Even before then, we are supposed to go to Turkey to partake in the UEFA Assist preparatory competition, that should be from 20th-28th September,'' Garba concluded.

Nigeria will face Hungary, Ecuador and Australia in the group stage of the 2019 FIFA U17 World Cup.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel