By Toby Prince
All eyes will be on the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria as they begin the quest to retain their title at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile – which takes place from October 17 to November 8.
Drawn against tournament host Chile, Croatia and USA in group A, the team will hope to better the performances of their predecessors at this competition.
Coach Emmanuel Amunike is optimistic of his team’s chances as he believes his wards will surely retain the title they won two years ago.
“We are here to defend the trophy,” Amunike said after the team arrived Chile on Wednesday, ahead of their opening match on Sunday.
“We are here with new players who want to write their own history and we are looking forward to our first game against the United States of America,” he added.
With the country boosting an unbelievable record at the cadre level, we take a look at some mind-blowing stats and facts from Nigeria’s participation at this competition over the years.
- Nigeria is the most successful country in the tournament’s history with four titles (1985, 1993, 2007, 2013) and three runners up (1987, 2001, 2009). Brazil and Ghana follow with three and two titles respectively.
- The Golden Ball award for the most valuable player at a particular tournament has been won thrice by Nigerians – the highest by any nation. Phillip Osondu in 1987, Sani Emmanuel in 2009, and Kelechi Iheanacho in 2013.
- Wison Oruma at Japan 1993 and Macauley Chrisantus at Korea 2007 are the only two Nigerians to have won the Golden Shoe award for most goals scored in a single tournament.
- The country has failed to qualify for this competition only once in Italy 1991 and once failed to progress pass the group stage in Finland 2003 after the Eaglets were eliminated by drawing of lot – as they were tied with Costa Rica on both points and goals.
- Dele Alampasu, Eaglets’ goalkeeper to the 2013 edition of the competition is the first and only Nigerian to have won the Golden Glove award for the most outstanding keeper in a particular edition.
- Despite winning the titles on four occasions, Nigeria has never successfully defended her title at the next edition.
- 1708 goals have been scored in the history of the tournament with Nigeria’s Chidera Ezeh scoring the 1700th goal in 2013.
- Nigeria has successfully hosted this competition once in 2009 but couldn’t capitalise on home support to win the title – they lost 1-0 to Switzerland in the finals. While Mexico is the first and only team to have hosted and won on home soil in 2011.
- Nigeria hold the record for most goals scored by a team in a single tournament with 26 goals in the 2013 tournament hosted by United Arab Emirates. They are closely followed by Germany with a total of 24 goals in the 2011 edition hosted by Mexico.
- With an average age of 16 years and 11 months, the current crop of Eaglets are the youngest in the history of the country’s participation at the biennial event.
