Nigeria Content Online

The
11th edition of the Africa Youth Championship starts today and the road
to stardom for some of the players will also start from Johannesburg.
As players from the eight countries gather, the teams all have a common
goal – to be crowned champions at the end of the tournament on May 1,
but only one of them will take that accolade.

Though the
Federation of International Football (FIFA) introduced age-grade
football competitions, i.e. the U-17 and U-20s, to breed a new set of
football stars, only once has a country from Africa won the U-20 world
championship and that was Ghana in Egypt in 2009.

Nigeria, though a
‘powerhouse’ in age grade football, not only in Africa but in the
world, going by the records but for all that muscle flexing,

Nigeria has never
won the U-20 World Cup, on the six occasions that she has participated.
For the African version, the country in the 90s won five successive
trophies and has been quasi-successful in the 2000s. The closest has
been final appearances in 1989 in Saudi Arabia and in 2005, when the
team led by Samson Siasia came very close but lost to Argentina.

The culture of
breeding players through the youth ranks should be the main focus of
the tournaments, so we will look at players that have been able to
graduate and move successfully into the senior team after their stint
in the U-20s.

Looking back over
the years, a lot of talent has moved up the ladder and most notable
amongst these graduates is Mutiu Adepoju, who won silver at Saudi
Arabia in 1989 and went on to represent the country at three World Cup
tournaments. There have been others like Etim Esin, Austin Okocha,
Taribo West and now the likes of Mikel Obi, Taye Taiwo, Chinedu Obasi
and many others who were part of the 2005 U-20 set.

Comparison with Europe and the Americas

Lately, we all can
see the genius of Lionel Messi, week in and week out but the little
Argentine first came to the world’s consciousness with virtuoso
performances for the U-20 team in Holland in 2005. Now, just six years
after, he has won the World Player of the year award twice already,
with many more in view.

Diego Maradona was
a product of the first championship in Tunisia in 1978 and went on to
win to captain his country to a World Cup triumph in 1986. The most
explicit example of what this cadre can do, is Spain. They won the 1999
edition in Nigeria with Iker Casillas and Xavi in their squad and 12
years after, they went on to form the core of the team that brought
Spain its first World Cup. Ronaldinho was also in Nigeria in 1999 and
he also is a proud winner of the World Cup in 2002.

One of the
Nigeria’s opponents at Egypt 2009 was Germany and the junior Mannschaft
had players like Sven Bender and Lewis Holtby in the squad. Two years
after, Rabiu Ibrahim, a Nigerian midfielder, who was adjudged to be a
better player than both Bender and Holtby, just got signed by a Dutch
club,

PSV Eindhoven.
Meanwhile Bender and Holtby are regulars with Bundesliga sides,
Borrusia Dortmund and Mainz FC respectively. Also, the two players are
now full German internationals and you can almost say that they will be
at the next World Cup tournament in Brazil. That is called progression
and that is why FIFA set up the tournament.

The question then
is – when will a set of players from the African continent, who were
discovered at this level, lead their country to at least the semi-final
of the world event? That is the million-dollar question.

FIFA will look at
these examples and postulate that the concept has worked because it has
borne fruit for some countries but Africa is not enjoying as much a
success as these afore mentioned countries and analysts have said, the
issue is age-falsification. At U-20 level, the players are almost full
grown professionals but if they are really below the age limit, they
will continue to progress at a steady pace but for the Africans – the
insinuation is that they are already fully grown at that level and do
not improve any further.

But there is Ghana’s example

Though there might
be various explanations for the non-progression of seemingly more than
averagely talented players, there are still some postulations that can
be made. In the local league set up in most African countries, bar some
in the North and South Africa, player development in not taken
seriously. However the most common denominator in Africa is using
over-aged players to play the U-17 and U-20 tournaments that yield
quick ‘fruits’ for the players, their families and the coaches but
which five years down the line, the countries will come to rue.

But the only
African winners of the U-20 World Cup, Ghana have shown at least from
the promotion of most of the victorious 2009 set, that if done
properly, the national sides are the ultimate beneficiaries. The Black
Stars introduced six players from the victorious U-20 side into the
full national team that reached the quarter final of the 2010 World Cup
in South Africa. Players like Dominic Adiyah and particularly Andre
Ayew, captain of the U-20 side, showed with their feet that they can
progress to the next level and also perform well. Ayew even got
nominated as the young player of the tournament, though he lost out to
Thomas Mueller of Germany.

So as this 11th edition kicks off, the question that needs to be
answered is not, who will win the competition but which countries will
produce the football players that will take their country to a World
Cup triumph, let us say in Qatar 2018? That is the question that must
be answered as the eight countries join battle starting today in South
Africa.