Nigeria U19 Boys volleyball team is ranked number two in Africa. According to the rankings released by Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the Boys U19 team occupy number 14 in the world.
Reacting to the ranking, the assistant head coach of the team, Adeniyi Adekalu attributed the ranking to teamwork, discipline and passion.
Adekalu told www.aclsports.com that the players showed the spirit of winning mentality starting from the 2017 African Youth Games in Algeria where they won gold and the World Championships in US.
The Sunshine Spikers gaffer commended the leadership of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) for believing in the capacity of the players and coaching crew.
He said, “I am not surprised with the current ranking because the boys always play with their heart. We always emphasise on teamwork and discipline is our watch word. No team can excel without discipline and the boys have serious passion for the game.
“The U19 team is determine to excel if you follow their progress from 2017. Most of these were in Algeria at the African Youth Games where we won gold. The journey to success was rough because most of the North Africans teams wrote us off. The team later participated at the U19 World championships in Tunis as we crashed out in the quarterfinals”.
“The success of the boys is not complete without mentioning the President of Nigeria Volleyball Federation, Engineer Musa Nimrod. The NVBF under his leadership made sure the boys had the necessary exposure”.
