Super Falcons defender Michelle Alozie says the gallant fight that the Super Falcons put up against England in the FIFA Women’s World Cup round of 16 was for Africa.
The Super Falcons bowed out of the competition on Monday after a goalless stalemate concluded with England advancing to the quarter-finals, courtesy of a 4-2 penalty shootout.
For the first time in the history of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, three African nations progressed to the round of 16, with Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa flying the African women’s football flag.
Speaking after the tightly contested affair, Alozie said they were disappointed, but proud of the fight they put up for Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
“I mean yeah, obviously this isn’t how we wanted our World Cup to end. We really had a lot of opportunities early on, myself included. We should have put them away sooner instead of letting it go to PK’s, especially with us being up one person but I can’t be more proud of this team” said Alozie.
“We probably had one of the hardest groups, some say the group of death. We came out and no one believed in us. We played over 90 minutes, going to PK’s with England, Europe’s top team, and so everyone kind of counted us out and put us as the underdog”.
“We kept fighting, we fought for Africa, we fought for Nigeria and I just hope everyone is proud of us but this isn’t the end, this is really only the beginning of the wave of Nigerian soccer” conclude Alozie.”
3 Comments
Kudos to u girls. u gave ur best.
It felt like robbery, especially after you were clearly shoved down to the ground in the English 18-yard. I don’t know if any defeat of a Nigerian team had been more painful and difficult to swallow for me cos I know we should be the ones playing Colombia who should be easy pickings compared to England and Australia. It was a sure semi final placement. You’ve raised the bar though and only the Olympic gold medal will compensate to some extent. Hopefully by then we would have got a more clinical striker or 2.
that oyinbo wayo fifa wayo , even one bbc sports news highlight on the web page, was named daylight robbery. fifa knew if England came out with a penalty against when Alonzie was shoved they will not make more money better than Nigeria going through.