It would be a clash of teams with contrasting fortunes as Nigeria face Ireland in their final Group B match on Monday.
While Nigeria’s Super Falcons are looking forward to the knockout stage, Monday’s match will be the end of the road for the already eliminated Ireland.
But it will not be a stroll in the park for the Nigerian side, knowing fully that Australian fans will be solidly behind the Irish side for the obvious reasons.
Perhaps it is on that account that history -making Super Falcons captain Onome Ebi remarked that her players tare gingered and in a super positive mood ahead of the match.
The 40 – year old became the oldest women to have featured at this edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup when she was introduced into the game against co-hosts Australia at the same venue on Thursday.
She’s also one of the few women, and the only one from the African continent, to have played in six finals, alongside Brazil’s Marta and Canada’s Christine Sinclair.
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“We are very positive and looking forward to the match. The mood in camp is great and everyone is in high spirits. The win against Australia has given us the belief and the confidence to face any team. We will play for a win.
“We want Nigerians all over the world to continue to support us and believe in the team. That alone gives us great motivation. We have won one match and drawn one. We want to set the record of not losing any match in the group phase and topping our group.”
When the Falcons reached the knock-out rounds in the USA in 1999, the team lost to hosts USA before defeating North Korea and Denmark to make the quarter-finals. Mercy Akide and Rita Nwadike scored in the 2-1 win over North Korea, while Akide and Nkiru Okosieme scored in the 2-0 win over Denmark.
In 2019, when they reached the Round of 16, the nine-time African champions lost 0-3 to Norway and 0-1 to hosts France, on either side of a 2-0 defeat of South Korea, with Asisat Oshoala scoring after an own goal by the Koreans.
“We know we still have a job to do; we are not deterred. We simply go in there and play for a win,” Ebi added.
The Falcons, top of the pool with four points, take on the ‘Girls in Green” on Monday night starting from 8pm Australia time (11am Nigeria time) with the Irish already eliminated from the tournament.
8 Comments
That’s the spirit.
God bless you girls.
Please dont. Those Irish ladies are very good. They are just unfortunate to be out of the tournament at the moment. So please do not underrate them.
Maintain your defensive discipline and sustain your attacking verve. May the Almighty see you girls through.
On another note……Can we have female footballers in Nigeria with the football sense of Linda Caicedo….? That kid is simply sensational. The MVP of this world cup so far for me.
This Women’s world cup is serving us as much excitement as the Men’s game.
The future of the game is indeed feminine.
NFF….please wake up…! Female football is growing massively all over the world.
Apart from being a potential MVP, Caicedo has also scored arguably the goal of the tournament so far. Her goal against Germany is simply ridiculous. That footwork to get past the 2 German defenders, then curling the ball into the top corner!
Her mother is a Nigerian I gathered.
Is that so? Interesting!
Dem don come again o. Liars!
We have such quality in ajibade,payne,kanu,oshoala and many others in our team, they just need to build up courage and unlish their best expecially in the opponents yards, if they can control their nerves and be more confident in decision making they can produce classic goals, same issue also apply to southafrica and jamaika, thank God morocco delivered their best ahead of south korea, colombia and Nigeria are teams to beat in this wcup. Talking about talents, chioma sebastine the under 20 number 9 will grow to be a superstar for falcons, her skills, spead and dribblings will be a verry dangerouse weapon for the falcons.
Please ignorant Nigerians stop claiming every successful black person.inda Caicedo’s
parents are Colombian. None of them comes from Nigeria.