Nigerian forward Toni Payne says the Super Falcons can qualify for the second round at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Randy Waldrum’s side have a point from match day one after a draw with Canada and are joint second in Group B.
Australia are first in Group B with three points after match day one. Ireland are ranked fourth with zero point.
The Super Falcons will face Australia next on July 27 at Lang Park, Brisbane as they seek to reach the knockout stages.
In a video posted on the Super Falcons Twitter handle, Payne stated that she expects more attacking play against the Matildas of Australia.
“I think we played a really defensive game against Canada,” Payne said.
“I think we expect to have the same performance against Australia, I think we expect to have more of the ball, more attacking.
“I think all the teams in our group are beatable teams, we have a really good team and if we stick to our game plan we have a very good chance of making it out of the group.”
3 Comments
I think, I think, na so so thinking you dey think??
Super Falcons Sending Shivers Down Australian Spines
Our stock is slowly rising in this World Cup as pundits and seasoned female football commentators now expect the Super Falcons to give the big guns a run for their money.
Ahead of Nigeria’s match against Canada, BBC pundit and former goalkeeper Rachel Brown-Finnis had tipped the Super Falcons to lose 2:1. However based on how Waldrum’s angels applied themselves with high level organisation in that game, Rachel now sees Nigeria differently.
Australia, missing key player Sam Kerr due to injury, will face the Super Falcons in on Thursday morning.
Rachel now believes that Nigeria showed resilience against Canada to force a 1:1 draw. Our ladies are proving to be a formidable opponent.
Brown-Finnis expects a hard-fought draw between the two teams, leaving Australia with more work to do to progress from their group.
On BBC website, she said: “Nigeria showed against Canada that they are hard to beat, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they got another point here too – a 1:1 draw is predicted.”
Meanwhile, Australian midfielder Katrina Gorry has described the Super Falcons as “scary”.
“Nigeria have got so much speed but a lot of class across the field, (they’re) technically very good,” said Gorry who is in line to feature in the match.
“If you’re not on your defensive game, they’ll exploit you and with the pace they have, it’s pretty scary,” concluded the 30 year old midfielder Keep Up magazine.
With Ajibade, Oshoala, Payne and Onumonu charging down like bulls to a matador, who won’t be scared?
All I can say is echo Ajibade’s sentiments when she said : ‘we’ve got this.’
All well and good brothers but I for one am still yet to be convinced by Oshoala – I have not seen anything encouraging from her at all and I understand those saying it was because of the tactics and formation that the manager employed against the Canadians – which in itself also has it’s merits (better to be wise and cautious than fully and rash) especially against a team with the accolade of being currently the best or one of the best – okay I get that you want to be err on the side of caution against them, but still we have seen that tactic deployed before and it does not completely exclude your striker making attempts to score goals – rather it incorporates it in a different way – teams employing that tactic do not mean that they do not want to score goals at all because if you do not score at least one goal, no matter how defensively successful you are you will never win the game – so in my view Oshoala was still lacking in that game and her performance was extremely poor – there’s no other way to put it, my sincere hope is that if Ogbeni Waldrum deploys her again, that we see a lot more of her, occupying the defenders and making real attempts at goal any way she can – no more of this complete invisibility and absolute zero impact in a game – Onumonu at least was more visible and could be seen to be trying to the best of her ability within the confines of the system we played which as we have already identified was a sit back, defend and try to break and attack on the counter approach which again was the right tactic for that first game although we now have to come out a bit more in the next game but still maintain that active defensive awareness, and be looking to hit the Aussies on the counter attack.
If we sit off the Aussies for as long in the first half as we did against the Canadians, it will be disaster because trust me, the Aussie coach would have seen that and fixated on it to try and find a strategy against it and they would have found it – so any attempt to repeat that same strategy will not work again against them – Mr Waldrum take good note!