Nimrod rates Nigerian girls as future continental champions

Egypt beats Cameroun to win title President of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVF), Musa Nimrod, has described the country’s failure to qualify for the U-19 Girls World Cup, as a big dent in the nation’s volleyball development.

He is, however, impressed by the team’s efforts at the competition, which ended yesterday. He said the girls have the potential to become Africa’s best team in the nearest future.

Egypt defeated Cameroun to win the competition, which drew teams from across Africa to Abuja.   He said: “I am not disappointed with the performance of Nigeria, because these are young children, who are just coming up.

“Most of them started barely three or four months ago and we are happy with how they played.   “We are looking up to the U-19 boys to retain our gold… they are in Morocco now and we are looking forward to winning.      “We defeated Tunisia, yesterday, and Cameroun the day before that. The other day we beat Sudan, so we have the capacity. We are ninth in the U-19 world rankings; so, you can’t joke with us in the U-19 boys category.”

In the final of the competition at the multipurpose hall of the MKO Abiola Stadium, Egypt defeated Cameroun 3-1 (24-26), (16-25), (25-22), (13-25) to lift the trophy.

The champions had in their last group game beaten Cameroun 3-0, before yesterday’s match, which gave both countries the tickets to represent Africa at the World Cup holding later this year.    The African Volleyball Federation (AVF) has also released the dream team of the competition and despite Nigeria’s dismal outing in the qualifier, Miriam Usman made the best line up, as she was adjudged the competition’s best libero.       Nigeria lost all her games at the competition and missed out on the qualification