The National U-18 and U-20 male handball teams will begin their campaign for the International Handball Federation (IHF) Continental Trophy championship today. The competition holds between January 16 and 20 in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.
The teams qualified for the continental championship after winning both the U- 18 and U-20 categories of the IHF Challenge Trophy for Africa Zone 3 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
While Nigeria’s U-20 squad will meet Guinea in its first game, the country’s U-18 team will clash with Congo.
The two national age-grade handball teams, which left the country on Friday for Brazzaville, had trained in Lagos State for over two weeks under the U-18’s Coach Emeka Nnamani and U-20 coach, Fidelis Obi.
The technical representative of the Handball Federation of Nigeria (HFN), Coach Bala Mohammed, is the head of the country’s delegation to Brazzaville accompanied by the HFN federation’s Secretary General, Mr. Mr. Almo Umar Lambu.
The championship, which will be competed in a round-robin format, as the Nigerian U-18 team will tackle Burundi by 11:00 am and the U-20 clash with Guinea at 9:00 a.m.
Meanwhile, top Nigerian music star, Peter Okoye of P-Square, who met the players at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on their way to Brazzaville, charged them to make the country proud by winning their matches.
