Giants of African women’s football, Nigeria and Cameroon will be taking no prisoners when they clash in Douala on Friday for a place in the final round of the African qualifying series for this year’s Women’s Olympic Football Tournament.
The Super Falcons, rated top in Africa and still walking with springs in their steps after reaching the Round of 16 at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Down Under, exiting the finals without losing a match in regulation time, will remember at kick-off that the Indomitable Lionesses stopped their march to the London 2012 Olympics.
On their part, the Lionesses have grouses of their own, having been bumped by Nigeria in several major events including being denied the Women Africa Cup of Nations title in front of their own fans in 2016, and being shoved out at the quarter-finals of the last Women AFCON tournament in Morocco.
Coach Randy Waldrum has recalled fabulous defender Ashley Plumptre, now based in Saudi Arabia, and Halimatu Ayinde, Toni Payne and Christy Ucheibe will get to play together in the middle again after a stirring outing at the World Cup in Australia. There’s also the talented youngster Deborah Abiodun.
Nigeria’s goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie is one of the most respected safe hands globally, and in forwards Asisat Oshoala, Rasheedat Ajibade, Uchenna Kanu, Gift Monday and Esther Okoronkwo, the Super Falcons boast one of the most stellar attacking ensemble in women’s football.
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Captain Ajibade scored two of the five goals that eliminated Ethiopia in the second round of the qualifiers, with Oshoala also scoring, and Okoronkwo and Kanu were on fire as Cape Verde were put to the sword in the final round of qualifiers for this year’s Women AFCON championship.
Veteran defender Osinachi Ohale is peerless on her day, and younger stallions Tosin Demehin and Rofiat Imuran have grown to become true fighters whenever the occasion called for such.
Cameroon, who edged Uganda 3-2 on aggregate in the second round, will be missing star player Ajara Njoya Nchout. Yet, it will be dangerous to underestimate what the Lionesses can come up with right in their own den.
Both teams will join the same flight to Nigeria’s administrative capital, Abuja for Monday’s return leg at the MKO Abiola National Stadium.
South Africa’s Banyana Banyana will take on Tanzania the same weekend, with the winner over two legs to clash with the winner of Nigeria/Cameroon for one of the African tickets to Paris in July.
Tunisia clash with Morocco in an all-North African affair while Ghana host Zambia in Kumasi. Winners will face off for the second African ticket to Paris.
9 Comments
This qualifier for women soccer in Africa is not the best.
How can Nigeria, South Africa and Cameroon, who are 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively in Africa based on Fifa ranking be eliminating themselves while the other route contains, Morocco, Ghana, Zambia and Tunisia who are 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th respectively. Common sense should have ensured that Nigeria and South Africa should be seeded so that the best representative from Africa will emerge.
Zambia and Cameroon were seeded because they were the final two in the last Olympics qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympic Games. FIFA rankings were not used during Draws
It’s a no brainer. Thus is not age grade competition. On current form and FIFA ranking, Nigeria and SA are the best
Meanwhile Cameroun Vs Nigeria SF still 0 – 0. 85 minutes played.
Thanks for the update as non of the online stream sites streaming it.
Match concluded. 0:0. I honestly expected the SF to get at least an away goal. Meanwhile, South Africa walloped Tanzania 3 – 0 away in the other match.
If we scale Cameroun, it’s going to be a titanic battle for the Olympic ticket against SA.
@ =Femi, the NFF, especially its media department headed by Ademola Olajire, is completely useless when it comes to streaming Super Falcons (and sometimes SE) matches. They rely on other people’s personal efforts.
Oshoala is proving to be a real agbaya with each passing game.
How can you be 2 on 1 with the Gk and not square the ball to your unmarked teammate to tap in…?? Really…?
What is she doing with all that selfishness….?
After largely being impotent all game, you can’t learn to put your personal ego in the bin for the same of the greater good…?!
We easily should have won Cameroon 0-2 right there on their soil.
If she no wan play for Nigeria again make she pack her things and leave. She should stop hurting the team with below par performance on a consistent basis
Oshoala keeps doing the same thing over and over, I wonder who’s she’s contesting with in the SF forward line and costing the team. She’s already regarded as ‘agba baller” by her teammates, so who’s she competing with?
She was one of the reasons we ended up playing England in Australia last year instead of the easier Colombian team in the QF. We could have beat Northern Ireland 1 – 0 to top the group.
But, honestly, I don’t like women referees, especially African female referee. I think, unlike men, they don’t have the mental toughness to make fair decisions against the home team.
Immediately I saw that the Moroccan ref that whistled rubbsih in the Nigeria-GB match in the group stage was among the officials for the final, I started to lose hope before the kickoff. They should stick to linesmen roles.
Let’s leave the refs of out this pls.
The refs did a good job. They were not the reasons agbaya-baller spurned begging chances to put the home team to the sword. Male ref or female ref, as long as there is no VAR refereeing decision will continue to be skewed towards home teams in Africa. It is your own duty as an away team to look beyond who is at the centre, up your game to a higher level and bury your clear-cut chances as they come.
We could have won Cameroon in Douala yesterday but for some indifferent attitude the a player who was expected to be that talisman of the team and conjure match winning moments out of nothing, but has been the albatross of the team in recent years.
The earliest we get oshola off our starting XI the better for us.