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John Obuh, the
coach of Nigeria’s Under-20 national football team, John Obuh has
commenced the task of ensuring that the Flying Eagles advance to the
knockout rounds of the upcoming African U-20 Youth Championship (AYC)
by calling up 34 players to camp. The move by the Flying Eagles coach
comes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s AYC draw which saw the Nigerian
side pitched alongside Ghana, Cameroon and Gambia in Group B of the
tournament which gets under way on March 18 with the Flying Eagles
opening their quest the next day with a game against Ghana in Benghazi.
The Flying Eagles will, three days after the game against the
tournament’s defending champions, come up against Cameroon before
ending their group phase games with a match against the Gambians on
March 25.

But only two teams
will get to advance to the semi-final round of the tournament where
they will be joined by two other sides from Group A featuring the
hosts, Libya, Mali, Egypt and Lesotho.

However, the AYC
serves as the qualifying tournament for the next FIFA U-20 World Cup to
be hosted later in the year by Colombia, and with only four slots
reserved for the African continent, advancing to the semi final will be
the least aspiration of every side coming to Libya as it guarantees a
slot at the World Cup which gets underway on July 29.

And Obuh, keen on
ensuring that the Flying Eagles get to pick up one of the four tickets,
has called up 34 players to camp. The players, who are mostly drawn
from the Nigerian Premier League and the second-tier division, the
National League, as well as a handful of players from the amateur
division, are expected to report at the FIFA Technical Centre, Abuja on
Saturday.

New Invitees

However, none of
the players called up by Obuh this time around had previously featured
for the Flying Eagles as the coach, in a bid to get new players to add
to the side which secured the AYC qualification ticket, opted to call
up new players. During the qualifiers for the AYC, Obuh prosecuted his
side’s matches mostly with players that he had two years ago led to a
second-place finish at the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup which took place in
Nigeria.