Nigerian Eaglets face old foes B'Faso in the opener of the WAFU U-17 tournament

The Golden Eaglets, the national U-17 men's team, will begin their WAFU B U-17 title defence in Ghana on Thursday (today), facing their old foe Burkina Faso.

The Eaglets won the WAFU B tournament in 2022 under coach Nduka Ugbade, beating Burkina Faso by 2-1. However, at the 2023 U-17 Nations Cup in Algeria, the Burkinabe won 2-1 against Nigeria in the quarterfinals to deny the five-time world champions a World Cup spot.

Despite the new crop of players on both sides, the little bit of history between them will put revenge in their minds as they prepare for the 2025 Nations Cup and the expanded 2025 World Cup.

The FIFA Council confirmed in March that the U-17 World Cup would be expanded to 48 teams and held annually rather than biennially.

With the Eaglets now under Manu Garba's leadership, they have passed the mandatory MRI test, with Garba exuding confidence about the team's quality despite having had his squad trimmed by failures in the same test before departing Nigeria.

As Garba told NFF media, "We are happy with the results. The entire squad prosecuting the tournament somewhat eases our minds."

"The players are responding well to training. The weather is similar to what we experienced in Abuja before we left. It is our primary goal to get a ticket to the Africa U-17 Cup of Nations from here. Until we can focus on the matches individually, we will concentrate on our opening match against Burkina Faso on Thursday (today)."

Simon Cletus, one of the players from the last squad, has been given the responsibility of captaining the team, according to Francis Achi, the team's media officer.

Burkina Faso will play at the Ghana University Stadium, Accra, at 4pm Nigerian time on Sunday, followed by Niger Republic at 7pm Nigerian time on Sunday and Togo at 5pm Nigerian time on Wednesday.