The team scored 26 goals en route winning the Cup, a record feat since the competition started in China in 1985. Speaking on how his players were turned into sharp shooters, Garba told reporters that it was down to the experienced coaching crew, which sold the philosophy of total attacking football to the players, who in turn replicated it on the pitch.
“When we started recruiting players into this team, the coaching crew wanted players who could score. We had to sell the idea to them that they must know how to score before making the grade.
“My task was made easy because I was surrounded by experienced former football stars like Emmanuel Amuneke, a winner of the African footballer of the year award, Nduka Ugbade, the skipper of the first Golden Eaglets that won the first FIFA Under-16 Cup and Emeka Amadi, who was a former goalkeeper of the Flying Eagles.
“With this high calibre of coaches working with me, we drilled the players on the technique of scoring and I must tell you that it was a tough and painful experience because these young lads were pushed to the limit and they coped well because they are young.
“They showed us that they had adopted our new philosophy of attacking football by scoring in all their matches. They were not just good at scoring but also good at unsettling the opponents with relentless attack from all wings. They were truly goal-scoring machines and that was why we were confident that we were going to score not just once but three times”, added a beaming Garba.
