U17 AFCON: Nduka Ugbade excited by Nigeria winning start in Algeria

By Saheed Afolabi

Nigeria U17 head coach, Nduka Ugbade is excited to begin the U17 Africa Cup of Nations on a winning note following his side 1-0 victory over Zambia at the Stade Mohamed-Hamlaoui on Sunday.

Favour Oluwasegun Daniel solitary effort in the second half handed the Golden Eaglets a narrow over the junior Chipolopolo and the former international admits the slim win offers his team the mental edge in the tournament.

“Most of the times, for the young teams, the most important thing is psychology. Not physicality, tactics or anything. Winning the first game gives us a mental edge and psychologically, we are better than we started,” Ugbade told CAFOnline.com.

“African football has really developed and all teams are strong now especially in Youth football. We played a very tough game against Zambia and anyone could have won.

“Of course there were some mistakes and you will definitely have many of them at this stage of development. We created lots of chances that we couldn’t finish, some passes were not correct and many more errors. But the good thing is that we keep improving.

“Of course, we have the targets to win, but we need to go a step at a time. We focus on the next match and if we win we are in the quarters. We get to the quarters we win and we are in the World Cup.”

The Golden Eaglets will trade tackles with their Moroccan counterpart on the third of May.