<\/a><\/div>\nA youth football tactician in Ijeshatedo area of Lagos, Lateef Abdulgafar (aka Tunde) has revealed how he became a grassroots coach through what he called \u2018The Grace of God,\u2019 Sports247 reports. <\/p>\n
The youthful tactician, who is the founder and head coach of Miracle Football Academy, whose training ground is at a spot called Fashola Ground in Powerline community, near Ijesha Market, disclosed that he did not even play football as a kid.<\/p>\n
Rather than evolve into a football tactician after an active playing career, \u2018Coach Tunde\u2019 disclosed further in an exclusive interview with Sports247 that he only used to analyse games and run mock commentaries while kids played on the street in his neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s grace that made me a coach,\u201d Abdulgafar recalled, \u201cI did not play active football, but I just knew how to analyse matches and I could also do mock commentaries when kids were playing set on the street. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt so happened one day that some of the boys were losing their game until I got there. I just started giving them instructions about what to do and they suddenly started scoring.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was after those boys won the game that all of them started calling me coach, coach. So, I just decided one day to start training them as a team and that\u2019s how Miracle Football Academy started in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although \u2018Coach Tunde\u2019 disclosed that a major challenge facing the team is that the pitch where they train at Ijesha Market is only good enough for five-a-side games, he is grateful that his players do not allow it to limit their physical fitness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe place that we are using for our training is not really big, but my players are wonderful. They always perform well when we go out to play on big fields for eleven-eleven matches. That\u2019s because they have a lot of determination,\u201d Abdulgafar pointed out.<\/p>\n
One of his colleagues, Jamiu Toheb, who runs a team called Great FC at the same playground, also told Sports247 that they are only \u2018managing\u2019 the spot because there is no bigger space nearby.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A youth football tactician in Ijeshatedo area of Lagos, Lateef Abdulgafar (aka Tunde) has revealed how he became a grassroots coach through what he called \u2018The Grace of God,\u2019 Sports247 reports. The youthful tactician, who is the founder and head coach of Miracle Football Academy, whose training ground is at a spot called Fashola Ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![<\/a><\/div>\nA youth football tactician in Ijeshatedo area of Lagos, Lateef Abdulgafar (aka Tunde) has revealed how he became a grassroots coach through what he called \u2018The Grace of God,\u2019 Sports247 reports. <\/p>\nThe youthful tactician, who is the founder and head coach of Miracle Football Academy, whose training ground is at a spot called Fashola Ground in Powerline community, near Ijesha Market, disclosed that he did not even play football as a kid.<\/p>\nRather than evolve into a football tactician after an active playing career, \u2018Coach Tunde\u2019 disclosed further in an exclusive interview with Sports247 that he only used to analyse games and run mock commentaries while kids played on the street in his neighbourhood.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s grace that made me a coach,\u201d Abdulgafar recalled, \u201cI did not play active football, but I just knew how to analyse matches and I could also do mock commentaries when kids were playing set on the street. <\/p>\n\u201cIt so happened one day that some of the boys were losing their game until I got there. I just started giving them instructions about what to do and they suddenly started scoring.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was after those boys won the game that all of them started calling me coach, coach. So, I just decided one day to start training them as a team and that\u2019s how Miracle Football Academy started in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\nAlthough \u2018Coach Tunde\u2019 disclosed that a major challenge facing the team is that the pitch where they train at Ijesha Market is only good enough for five-a-side games, he is grateful that his players do not allow it to limit their physical fitness.<\/p>\n\u201cThe place that we are using for our training is not really big, but my players are wonderful. They always perform well when we go out to play on big fields for eleven-eleven matches. That\u2019s because they have a lot of determination,\u201d Abdulgafar pointed out.<\/p>\nOne of his colleagues, Jamiu Toheb, who runs a team called Great FC at the same playground, also told Sports247 that they are only \u2018managing\u2019 the spot because there is no bigger space nearby.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A youth football tactician in Ijeshatedo area of Lagos, Lateef Abdulgafar (aka Tunde) has revealed how he became a grassroots coach through what he called \u2018The Grace of God,\u2019 Sports247 reports. The youthful tactician, who is the founder and head coach of Miracle Football Academy, whose training ground is at a spot called Fashola Ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7363\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facascout.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/www.sports247.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG-20260911-WA0007.jpg\"){kind=link}