FORMER Bayern Munich midfielder, Manfred Bender will accompany Nigeria’s Flying Eagles to next month’s African Youth Championship in Libya as a fitness trainer.

Team officials informed MTNFootball.com that the 44-year-old Bender, who joined the team in Abuja, will accompany the team to Libya for two friendly matches this week before also going with them to a training camp in Turkey.

“This is my first time of working in Africa, otherwise I have only visited countries like Tunisia, South Africa and Egypt on holidays,” Bender disclosed.

“It’s too early for me to have an assessment of the conditioning of the players, but I hope I could have a better picture when we play two matches against Libya this week.”

Bender’s contract is to cover the African championship.

Bender has coached in Austria after a distinguished playing career Karlsruher SC, 1860 Munich and 1. FC Saabrucken.

He further told MTNFootball.com that the Flying Eagles will enjoy the best build-up to the AYC in Antalya, Turkey, because of the top-class facilities on offer there.

“A few years ago, I took my Austrian team there for training, just like many other clubs from Germany, Russia and Holland do. The facilities there are excellent with both natural grass and synthetic pitches,” he said.

“We hope to train on grass for most part of our stay in Turkey and then move on to the plastic pitch about a week to the competition because we will play on such a surface in Libya.”

Nigeria will battle defending champions Ghana, Cameroon and The Gambia in Group B of the African Youth Championship, which gets underway in Tripoli on March 18.

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