Haruna Ilerika aims for better outing in Japan with Nigeria despite Netherlands loss

By Wale Mustapha

Head coach Haruna Ilerika has set sight of making meaningful impact with Nigeria’s U15 boys team at the invitational tourney taking place in Tokyo, Japan.

The Future Eagles lost 1-0 to Netherlands in the opening match of the tournament on Wednesday and Ilerika revealed that his team are in spirit to go a step further than their previous third place finish in 2019.

Despite not given any target for the tournament, the grassroot tactician further stressed that the team insists it is imperative to use the event as breeding platform for future U17 players and also integrate with other nations.

“We were here in 2019, although not with this team, it was with another set of boys and we came third, this time around we want to see how we can win all our games and be happy with ourselves,” Ilerika told NFF TV.

“we promise we are going to do our best because we were able to have a sound preparation that can make us do better in this tournament. The essence of the tournament is to create friendship and see the level of development among nations and Nigeria is not an exception.

“The federation has not put in any hard task on us, what they want to see is the level of development, our level of progression to see those that can transit from one level to another. What we are looking out for at this stage is we want to make sure we try our best to get some of the boys and move them to the next U17.”