Former Golden Eaglets and Flying Eagles handler, John Sam Obuh has given useful tips to handlers of the age grade competitions, especially with the national U17 team, the Golden Eaglets set to take part at the FIFA world cup in Brazil coming up in the month of October this year.

The national U20 team did not however live up to expectations at the FIFA world cup in Poland earlier this year, as they were eliminated in the round of 16 by Senegal.

Speaking with www.brila.net, Obuh stated that too much time is spent on screening of players, as coaches should chose a specific number from the players available for screening and start coaching them, so as not to be caught napping during the preparation as well as tournament proper.

“In Nigeria, the more you screen, the more you see good players. What is best for you if you are a coach in that position is to screen to some certain planned level for yourself, then concentrate in coaching so that the time would not be against you because many times, you find out that even with three weeks to the tournament, they don’t even have a team or are not sure of their team”

“You go to their training centre, you still find as many people as possible still passing through screening”.

“The best they have to do is start screening on time, then at some point, you look at 50 people and then you start coaching. You start eliminating until you get to 30 players. Whenever you see a better player during friendly and build up matches, you change him with the one already in your team”.

“Before the tournament starts, you are sure of 30 good players, and then from there, you can now prosecute your tournament”.