With the Golden Eaglets recent qualification for the finals of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in the UAE, the perennial question of what becomes of these talented youngsters has started to ring out again. The age long (no pun intended) argument about age falsification within the nation’s youth teams is an ever constant colossus that usually overshadows whatever laurels the U-17’s or U-20’s win.
Nigeria has won the U-17 tourney three times and has played in the U-20 finals twice, throwing up a pool of amazing youngsters that showed so much promised and left Nigerians dreaming of a strong Super Eagles that would one day win the World Cup. However, that dream is still but a dream.

One factor that most Nigerians believe is responsible for this failure to transfer youth team success to the senior level is the tendency for youth players to falsify their ages. Many Nigerians tend to ask, “What happened to the stars of the all-conquering U-17 teams we had before?” Where are the likes of Peter Anosike, Ibrahim Babangida and Sambo Choji of the class of ’93; Femi Opabunmi, Soga Sambo and Temile Omonigho of 2001, King Osanga, Macauley Chrisantus, Yakubu Alfa of 2007? And these questions are not out of place.
However, the truth is that this phenomenon is not only peculiar to Nigeria. Usually, only a handful of youth players ever go on to have glorious careers at senior level; in most cases, between three to five players per squad.

It is very easy to say Gianluigi Buffon and Francesco Totti played for Italy in 1993, Andres Iniesta and Fernando Torres played for Spain in 2001, or Toni Kroos played for Germany in 2007 as did Eden Hazard and Christian Benteke for Belgium and Borjan and David De Gea for Spain. But how many of their team mates can we remember? How many of the squad of 18/21 players then, play for their senior teams today?
Where are the promising stars of yore like Florent Sinama Pongolle and Anthony Le Tallec (France U-17 2001) who were quickly snapped up by Liverpool? Pongolle was the only one lucky to get a single cap for the senior team. What of Fran Merida and Daniel Aquino (Spain U-17 2007) who have never been capped by Spain. Merida who was once an Arsenal youngster now plays for a lowly team in Brazil. Where is Richard Sukuta-Pasu (Germany U-17 2007) who scored four goals on their way to third-place?

The same is the trend at U-20 level. You only need to do a comprehensive research to discover that most youth players from the U-17 and U-20’s, even those from winning squads, usually just fade of into their local leagues and never get more than one to five senior caps if they are lucky. Many never do.

Below are a few reasons why youth players and Nigerian youth players in particular, never make it to the senior team.

1. A Large Biennial Pool of Players
The U-17 and U-20 World Cups take place every two years. This means that large pools of about 42 youth players are showcased on the world stage constantly every two years. That is 84 in four years, and 126 in six years. So imagine Nigeria, or any nation at that playing at U-17 and U-20 consecutively for six years and producing 126 potential senior team players. How many will end up making the cut?

2. Quality Senior players often play for over a decade
The chances of youth team players breaking into the senior team is also limited because their senior colleagues usually play for many years thus shutting them out of the senior squad. How many youth players between 2001 and 2008 stood a chance of displacing Joseph Yobo, Austin Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Vincent Enyeama, John Utaka, Obafemi Martins and the likes from the senior team? You would have to be exceptionally talented and extraordinarily lucky to do so. In the same vein, players like Asier Illaramendi, Nacho and Borjan (Spain U17 2007) will probably never get more than the one or two senior caps as long as Xavi Alonso, Gerard Pique and the like of Xavi and Iniesta continue to play for La Roja, just like Haruna Lukman and Rabiu Ibrahim.

3. The Quality of the Local League
A lot of youth players go on to enjoy their footballing careers playing in their national leagues. So many English players that we know from watching so much of the EPL played at youth level. We watch many former youth players in the La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and other top European Leagues even when they never play for the seniors. Can we say the same for Nigeria?

Most of our youth team players end up in the back leagues of Europe simply because they will settle for any deal that will pay foreign currency. At least with that they can support their families back home.

Yes some of our former youth players like Akpan Bassy have had long careers in the local league. Some have returned home after misadventures in Europe. But how many of them do we know of? How can we even know of them when we hardly follow the league, nor do we get to watch it on television?

4. Bad Career Choices
This is no doubt the bane of many fledgling careers. Our youngsters in a bid to play in Europe will settle for anything, anywhere. From Malta to Cyprus, Bulgaria, Qatar, Vietnam and Moldova; if there is cash to be earned, our players will go. Many do not seek to try and develop their game, but instead join clubs that will only turn them into a mediocre. There is no way you can play in such lower European leagues with players who with all due respect are not of a superior class and it will not affect your game. Even players like Pongolle and Le Tallec as stated above, who played with big names at Liverpool faded away. How much more someone playing in Malta or Liechtenstein?

In reality, it would be very myopic to just relegate the reason why our former youth internationals never graduate to play for the senior national team to just a matter of age falsification. There are many other factors to be considered. Only if these factors can be addressed systematically can we hope to see youngsters like Iheanaco, Yahaya, Awoniyi, Success and the many more that will come after them graduate seamlessly to the Super Eagles.

hmm you've tried.
My contribution: I think is high time we pay attention to our local leagues, you will hear many Nigerians calling themselves man u, arsenal, chelsea etc. When you ask them about our local club they'll simply say "wetin concern me concern Nigeria leagues".
I think leagues are also rated by numbers of viewers across the globe.

Dabossman. Liked ur write up . But if I will go by your analytical approach to this problem , I will conclude that for a player to feature for the national team at the professional level is a thing of luck and hard work . ... But sometimes the determining factor will be the choice of club .


Godwinsilas ... Your point is very valid too , but presently our local clubs needs overhauling , I think government needs to privatize it and hand it over to the able hands who are business minded and have passion for the game.