Rwanda U-17 team in camp ahead of World Cup finals

After sealing a place in the Fifa Under-17 World Cup finals, the national team is under intensive preparations to enable them stage a successful performance in the global show piece. The national U-17 team which is normally known as ‘Junior Wasps’ is the first ever Rwandan football team to qualify for the Fifa World Cup finals. Rwanda reached the World Cup finals after ejecting Egypt 1-0 in the semi finals of the Africa Under-17 championship held in Kigali in January. Rwanda went on to reach the final but lost to Burkina Faso 2-1 in the finals. Rwanda, Congo Brazzaville, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire will represent the African continent at the global show piece which will only attract players born after January 1, 1994. After the African success, Coach Richard Tardy is now taking the team into rigorous drills to enable strengthen the team as they prepare to face World’s elite nations in a global event due to be held in Mexico from June 18-July 10. The team stays at Belvedere Hotel and trains at Ferwafa artificial turf. According to Tardy, 15 players have so far been selected to the national team which will head to the World Cup finals. He still needs 6 more players to complete the final list of players who will represent Rwanda at the world finals. Prior to the world cup finals, Tardy will guide the team to a training camp in Europe were they are expected to play against several build-ups matches with Europe’s top footballing nations. “Our trip to Europe is basically aimed at giving these boys exposure to play against fellow professional players as way of improving on their competitiveness,” said Tardy. After Europe’s training camp, the junior wasps will return to Kigali for one week before heading to North America to fine tune ahead of the global showpiece in Mexico in June. When asked about the team’s qualification to the world cup finals, Tardy said, “It is hard work and support from Rwandans that enabled us to qualify for the world cup finals,” “We started from scratches, playing only friendly matches, we never had big competitions to engage our players so as to access their level but confidence and hard work helped us to succeed,” Tardy has set target on guiding Rwanda to the group stages of the world cup finals in Mexico. The French-born coach who served on different youth technical teams with the French teams has much confidence for his boys. “They are growing and improving their football level every day. They have improved physically, technically and their mentality is very impressing,” adds Tardy. Dorau20@yahoo.co.uk