CBE FC of Ethiopia head coach Heye Gizaw Birhanu says the team is firmly focused on having a good outing at the 2024 CAF Women’s Champions League.
Birhanu’s side will compete at Africa’s biggest club competition for the first time after three failed attempts in the past.
The Ethiopians will take on Nigerian champions Edo Queens in their first-ever game in the competition in Casablanca on Sunday (today).
The gaffer declared that his team is battle ready for the task ahead.
“After three attempts, we are finally here and yes, it is a good thing,” he told a press conference.
“However, this should not be taken for granted; now that we are there, we must give the best of ourselves and continue to surpass ourselves.
“There is still a lot of work to be done. Qualifying was the first step, now we need to continue to compete.”
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One has to be honest to say that the domestic Nigerian women’s football scene is looking delightfully vista and scenic these days.
The apex NWFL league, which has a glossy, attractive-looking website and well manned, monitored and maintained social media presence, runs like clockwork with passion, drive and determination from players to coaches to administrators and all concerned. The lower leagues to the grassroots – which only recently produced supremely talented, future Oshoala in Chidi Harmony – are teeming with young tantalizing talents who are players peckish for promotion and progression to the pagoda and pinnacle of footballing greatness.
Hence, more is expected of Nigeria’s representatives to this years CAF Women’s Champions League. Edo Queens has a quotient of quality players who more than capable of announcing themselves big-time in the tournament as veritable A-Listers among fellow big girls drawn from the most well-run leagues on the continent.
But, for the all strides our local ladies have made in the local league in more recent seasons with moderate support and financial injections for some powerful benefactors and good-Samaritans with a few cash to spare, I still habour concerns.
When it comes to the technical side, I remain worried that our game is sadly 2 Kobo short on 1 Naira needed to purchase success and tactical credibility.
You watch some of the local league matches and you easily spot embarrassing tactical gaps here and there with disjointed movements lacking in imagination and ingenuity and some comical moments in execution of basic routines and maneuvers that really become to the more rudiment era of women’s football of years, decades gone by.
But the silver lining is these girls/ladies/women, whatever the politically correct term to use, are fabulously talented with scope to expand their existing skillset to rub shoulders with some of the best women footballers on the planet.
Unfortunately, these raw female talents are let down by moribund and out-dated coaching techniques which spawns poor instructions, rudimentary football equipment, structures and infrastructure, safety concerns (particularly in the northern part of the country), poor remunerations, tendencies for unpaid emoluments, cultural and religious impediments, sexual exploitation, favoritism and several other vices.
Which has meant that many of our supremely fit, nimble and agile female players remain just that – raw diamonds – until they manage to find their way to foreign leagues to be refined and reproduced as heavy-hitters like Deborah Abiodun.
But some would argue that, that refinement is already obtainable in the local women’s league leading to Edo Queens’ swashbuckling, all-conquering performance and outcome in the earlier WAFU competition which qualified them for this tournament as proof.
If so, I will be keen to see, not just how far they go in this tournament, but how they go about their business regardless of progress made. The brand of football they play and the tactical and technical injections brought to bear will to me be a vital barometers to be monitored.
They wanted to be here, they are not here, let’s see how they get on.
Good luck Edo Queens!