Team Nigeria are ready to cause upset and make Nigeria proud at the Volleyball Boys U-19 World Championship in Iran, Caretaker Chairman of Nigeria Volleyball Federation, Engr. Musa Nimrod, has said.
Engr. Nimrod told sports writers in Kaduna on Monday that the team has been in camp for about two months and are ready to build on their performance in Tunisia two years ago, as they depart Nigeria on Thursday for Tehran, Iran hosts of the tourney scheduled for August 24 to September 2, 2021.
“We won the ticket early this year and the boys are young, vibrant, upcoming players expected to play in the senior team in the next two years. We thank God for giving us the enablement to keep the U-19 boys and the U-18 girls in camp for months. But we call on volleyball stakeholders to come in and assist us its not easy. Even the tickets alone is expensive.
“The U-19 boys will be leaving Nigeria on Thursday for Iran with 12 players and two coaches. If there were resources we would have gone with more officials even as the chairman I would have gone with them, but we have to manage the little resources we have.
“I don’t make promises but we were in Tunisia for the last U-19 World Championship and now we are going for the 2021 edition back to back. We have a team we are proud of and we believe they would make us proud in Iran,” he said.
Team head coach, Sani Mohammed Musa, said the team has been in camp preparing for the championship for two months, “after placing 14th in the world in 2019, we are African champions back to back and we are ready to stake our claim to global honour”.
Team captain, Jerry Baba Kinze, said the team is very prepared.
“We are prepared for this World Championship. We have been able to defend the African U-19 Championship and now we are representing Africa and we are ready to make Africa proud,” he said.
Nigeria ranked 9th is drawn in Pool A of four pools with hosts Iran, Poland (14), Guatemala (49) and another team to be confirmed.
