Coach of Nigeria men’s volleyball team, Usman Abdallah said the confidence level of his side is getting stronger by the day at the ongoing 2021 African Men’s Senior Volleyball Nations Championship in Rwanda.
Nigeria lost to Cameroon 3-1 (25-19, 25-27, 25-19, 25-20) in the men’s quarterfinals match on Saturday.
Abdallah told www.aclsports.com that his next assignment is to finish high at the biannual event.
He revealed that the senior national team is passing through a rebuilding process and the dividend of the process will be seen in the shortest time.
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The former NCS coach said, “We lost the match and won the game. The confidence of the team is getting better and I believe in the future you will see a stronger Nigerian team.
“It is always difficult playing a team like Cameroon but you can see they did their best and we hope the players will put in much effort against Uganda in the classification match. Making it to the quarterfinals after 16 years is an achievement and we seek a better position as far as this competition is concerned”.
“If you look at the team closely, you will find out that we have four of the players namely; Bruno Ibeh , Izuchukwu Nwachukwu, Moses Gana and Emmanuel Okeke attended the 2019 FIVB World Championship in Tunisia. The rest are mixture of experienced players and some of those who never had the opportunity to pass through the junior national teams”.
He appealed to the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development to complement the efforts of individuals by creating avenues for private organizations to assist volleyball financially.
Abdallah said, “We need the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development to assist us with sponsorship so that we can take the load from the individuals. The Government should give conducive environment to some of these private organizations in terms of tax relief so that we can have them pump their money into sports”.
Nigeria battles Uganda in the 5th to 8th classification matches on Monday by 2pm
