The Nigerian Golden Eaglets once again set Nigeria on the world soccer map for the fourth time by winning the prestigious U-17 World cup trophy.
This is most certainly good times for Nigerian Football, because during the nations cup in February this year Nigerian Super Eagles did the nation proud by winning the trophy for the third time and just November another trophy is been added to the Nations trophy room. This does not go without saying that the U-17 boys did marvelously well. Playing to the gallery at all times, not being selfish with the ball, playing with so much amazing confidence and most of all, playing as a team. But of course the trophy itself will not be complete without recounting the road to it.
Firstly it was the defending champions, Mexico who were given a bitter pill of defeat, 6-1 the match ended in. Secondly, Sweden, the Golden Eaglets got into that match with over-confidence and almost paid for it when the Swedes quickly hammered in two goals in the early minutes of the game, but for bravery on our side the Golden Eaglets bounced back and snatched a narrow draw ending 3-3. Phew! That was indeed close. Thirdly, Iraq felt our wrath and followed closely by their brother, Iran, who as well couldn’t escape. Uruguay was a sweet revenge; hammering them 2-0 was a delight. Followed by the Swedes who almost gave us heart attack in the preliminaries, they were wounded in battle 3-0 this time and finally, after scaling the Swedes we had to face our first “love”, the Mexicans, who I thought were really going to give the Golden Eaglets a very tough time but surprisingly we played them hands down beating them 3-0, I still didn’t see that toughness (or maybe I missed it).
We can only thank God that the Golden Eaglets scaled past the finals to the trophy, (though the match had some really unfair judgments in it), but thank God we scaled through. I just hope and pray that those boys will be groomed together to senior teams and they won’t let pride destroy their footballing career. Below is a table of U-17 winners since the inception of the tournament, Enjoy!


Honours


FIFA U-17 World Cup record
Year
Round Position GP W D* L GS GA
China 1985
Champions 1st 6 5 1 0 10 2

Japan 1993
Champions 1st 6 6 0 0 20 3

South Korea 2007
Champions 1st 7 6 1 0 16 4

UAE 2013
Champions 1st 7 6 1 0 26 5
Chile 2015
Not decided


Source: http://okunammiri..com/2013/11/congratulations-nigerians.html