The first Vice President of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) Ebenezer Morakinyo,  has commended Nigeria’s U-20 women volleyball team in spite of its poor outing.
Morakinyo told newsmen over the telephone on Monday in Abuja that the Women’s U-20 World Championship was their first international outing as a team and they played against well exposed teams.
The Nigerian team placed last at the championship after losing all its seven games in both the group stage and the classification round match.
The team lost its four group matches 0-3 to each of Turkey, Egypt and Italy and 2-3 to Algeria thereby placing fifth in Pool D and had to play in the classification match.
It also lost all the three matches in the classification match 0-3 to each of Puerto Rico, the U.S. and Thailand to finish in 20th place of the championship which held in Brno, Czech Republic.
The classification round match is a round robin for positions 17th to 20th.
“Their performance at the championship showed that we still need to do a lot of work to improve our playing level which is very important.
“And one thing we have to note is that they played against well exposed teams unlike our players who were just brought together for the qualifiers and championship.
“Our players have not been seriously exposed; apart from the African qualifiers which was hosted in Abuja in March, they have not played any serious international championship,’’ Morakinyo said.
He was however optimistic that the championship was the beginning for the team if they maintain their level of discipline.
“I believe that this is just the beginning for them because they are still very young.
“If they maintain their level of discipline, they will be able to go places, not only in Africa but in the world because most of them are within the ages of 18 and 19, so they still have many years of playing.’’
The seventh edition of the Federation of International Volleyball Women’s U-20 World Championship was held in Brno, Czech Republic from June 21 to June 30.
Nigeria was one of the 20 countries which participated in the 10-day event.