Monday 15 April 2013

Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets Maul Ghana’s Starlets 6-1 at Africa U-17 Tourney

 Isaac Success - Eaglets striker wants to live up to his name in Morocco

By MTNFootball.com
Eaglets striker Success Isaac has said he hopes to live up to his name in Morocco after he scored five goals in six qualifying matches.

The burly striker was blooded at the famous Megap Soccer Academy in Benin City. Incidentally, it is the academy that produced Super Eagles defender at the 2013 African Cup of Nations in South Africa, Elderson Echejile, who now serves as a mentor for Success.

Success is indeed a real admirer of great strikers including the late 1993 African Footballer of the Year, Rashid Yekini .

Yet his burning desire is to score as many goals as possible to ensure that the high-flying Golden Eaglets are crowned champions on April 27 at Stade de Marrakech. He has the built and proficiency in front of goals similar to that of Yekini, who fired the Super Eagles to glory at the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations.

“Yes, I have heard so much about Rashid Yekini,” revealed Success with a wide grin. “In fact, he is one of my favourite Nigerian players because he was a great goal scorer.

“Of course, yes.  I would like to score goals for the Golden Eaglets to win the African Under-17 title since I was told Yekini did same for Nigeria at the Nations Cup in 1994 and that would be a dream come true for me.”

Success’ story with the Golden Eaglets is inspirational. He was actually not on the list of shortlisted players who were picked at the open screening conducted for budding players. But like a thief in the night, he sneaked his way into the team’s closed camping and was given  a look-in by the ever-patient  Golden Eaglets coach, Manu Garba.

“Success has the attributes of a good striker,” said Garba who seldom singles out players for praises. “He’s strong on the ball, very effective and always ready to learn.”

The same was attested to by Rwanda’s Under-17 French coach, Richard Tady when Success rose from the substitutes’ bench to destroy the Junior Wasps in a 3-0 win in a friendly last September by assisting teammate, Chidera Ezeh, in scoring two of his hat-trick.

“That boy (No 9) actually changed the course of the game,” a crest-fallen Tady said after the near collapse of his wards after Success was brought into the fray.

“You could see that we were coping well in the first half, but the game changed immediately that boy came in; he is strong and you can see that he created two of the goals against us.”

Success is not only a creative player; he has scored his own share of goals for the Golden Eaglets. He is one of the team’s top scorers with 18 goals from all the 27 matches (including qualifiers for CAN 2013 as well as international and local friendly matches)  under the belt of the Golden Eaglets.

“Whatever we did during the qualifiers is now in the past and our focus now is the championship,” he said. “I have already set a target of goals for myself at this competition and I’m ready to sacrifice for the team.

“I don’t care about who will emerge as the top scorer at this tournament, my main objective is to help Nigeria win the cup and we must show the stuff we are made off  with the game against Ghana on Sunday.”

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