The coach of FC One Rocket junior team (Carabana Football Academy), Mr Itoro Attat has said that his team came to the ongoing Tico Select preseason tournament to learn.
The coach while speaking to Newspathfinder at the Uyo Township Stadium after his team lost 0-3 to Enyimba FC said the tournament is a learning ground for the young teams that are participating.
According to him, playing Enyimba is a big plus for his team, “Actually we are not here to compete because we are working with an academy”,
“It is just to open our eyes to see that there are different levels to football. It’s an opportunity to play against Enyimba, because if Enyimba is the best team in Nigeria and an academy is playing 3-0, it’s a good plus”,
“Because anytime they’re playing against their age mates they are very much ahead, so I am not expecting us to win Enyimba. We just came to play and learn”, he said.
He described the Tico Select tournament as a big platform for his boys and other young teams.
“Generally, it’s a very big platform for our youths because most of the participants are from academies. They’ll know that football outside Akwa Ibom is different from the one in Aba, Port Harcourt, Enugu and other places. It’s a privilege for us”.
Coach Itoro commended the organizers of the tournament and thanked them for bringing the event to Akwa Ibom saying that such competition will be good if held regularly as it will help young teams.
“Because the league cannot be ongoing while this competition holds, if not I would even advice them to organize it more. Even if it holds every three months, it would be very good for our exposure. We really appreciate the organisers. God bless them abundantly”.
