Eaglets perfect penalty kicks

The chief coach of the national Under-17 soccer team, the Golden Eaglets, Manu Garba, yesterday gathered his players to work on penalty shoot-outs as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) made is very clear that in case of a stalemate at the end of regulation time, there won’t be the 30 minutes of extra-time.The coach moved swiftly to ensure his players get accustomed to the kicks as they prepare for the semi-final clash against Tunisia at the Grande Stade de Marrakech.The Confederation of African Football (CAF) informed that there won’t be an additional 30 minutes of extra-time should any of the semi-final matches end in a draw, the game would go straight into penalty .The continental soccer governing body is strictly abiding with  the regulations instituted by FIFA since 2011 that all knock-out matches at the Under-17 level, must progress straight to penalties if tied at the end of 90 minutes-FIFA reportedly eliminated the extra time period to avoid players’ burnout.Golden Eaglets Head coach assured. “In fact, almost all the players are good at taking penalties but we are going to even work more as we prepare against Tunisia.”That some of the world’s best players often ‘choke’ and collapse under the weight of expectations during penalty shoot-out is a known fact hence the Nigerian lads are being tutored against becoming a ‘choke artists’ on the big stage by their coaching crew. At Monday’s training at the Sidi Youssef Ben Ali Stadium in Marrakech, the coaches took time off the regular training regimen to teach the players in the art of perfect penalty taking.“We are taking no chances at all and you can see that we are taking everything seriously,” Garba noted after the shoot-out exercise.”But we don’t want to depend on the lottery of the penalties as such; we would try our best and win the match in regulation time.”Incidentally, Golden Eaglets’ Success Isaac who is the leading scorer at Morocco 2013 CAN U-17 with six goals, has demonstrated the composure  expected of the  team when he scored from the 12 yards once against Ghana and Congo in previous group matches.