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Cameroon cruised to a 3-0 victory over tournament debutants Malawi to claim their first ever Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) title, Yahoo Sports reports.
Marie Ngah Manga’s close-range header put the Indomitable Lionesses ahead in the 20th minute and Naomi Eto doubled the lead with a stunning volley on the half hour mark in the Moroccan capital Rabat.
The Central Africans made it 3-0 in the third minute of first-half added time as Eto rounded Malawi goalkeeper Mercy Sikelo and put the ball on a plate for striker Ngah Manga.
Malawi, the lowest-ranked side at Wafcon 2026 at 153rd in the world, reached the final on the back of the attacking prowess of the Chawinga sisters Tabitha and Temwa.
However, the two Scorchers stars were well marshalled by the Cameroon defence, who ensured that the Southern Africans were unable to secure a fairy tale ending to their unexpected run at the tournament.
Ngah Manga missed a glorious chance to complete her hat-trick three minutes into the second half when she went past Sikelo but fired wide from six yards with the goal gaping.
The Scorchers had their best chance just after the hour mark as Cameroon keeper Michaely Bihina saved a low effort from Tabitha Chawinga before her younger sibling turned and fired the rebound wide.
Cameroon’s triumph is all the more remarkable given the Indomitable Lionesses missed the 2024 edition of Wafcon and failed to qualify for these finals, losing 3-1 on aggregate to Algeria in their second round tie.
However, the Central Africans advanced to the tournament on the strength of their world ranking after the Confederation of African Football (Caf) expanded the finals from 12 to 16 teams.
Cameroon, who previously lost three Wafcon finals, pick up $2m (£1.48m) in prize money and become just the fourth side to win the title after Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa.
Both sides will feature at the 2027 Women’s Fifa World Cup in Brazil alongside fellow Wafcon semi-finalists Algeria and Morocco.
11 Comments
NFF will be doing “longer throat” for that $2 million.
Hiki hiki haka haka.
I laugh in Tashkent.
They can look at it from a distance, but $1 wey wash no go reach dem.
Now, there is no money coming in for NFF from anywhere. Nothing from FIFA, nothing from the government and nothing from corporate sponsors.
Let’s hope NFF will not sell the land and building of the Glass House, so they can have something to share. E go dey like film. They will come out with a story of how they need to sell the Glass House to raise funds for day to day operations, hahahahaha!
They claim to be administrators, but they can’t perform the basic admin function of generating profits from football, even though they are sitting on a market of 200+ million soccer crazy Nigerians!!!
If someone claims to have a masters degree in mathematics, but struggles to solve a simple quadratic equation, then questions will definitely be asked. Is that Masters degree even worth the paper it was printed on? Abi the degree na Toronto degree?
In the same vein, our officials’ call themselves administrators, but they can’t perform basic admin functions. They can’t generate profits from football business, but they can share money very well.
They are excellent when it comes to sharing money.
Your comment is top notch but you forget that they are agent to most of these average players that are getting sold during this windows, and have cut from the largesse. NFF is corrupt and have never changed until date, only revolution from A-Z will eradicate and help deliverance for Nigeria football to survive this Pharaoh Era.
Na original Pharaoh era we dey. We urgently need a Moses to rescue us from this bondage.
Whatever that Samuel etoo is cooking in Cameron is smelling nice, this sis where we need to seriously ask for change to our football governance.
Pride goes before a fall.
The Super…… wait, let me first and foremost congratulate Cameroon who showed Nigeria that focus, concentration, hard work and attention to details win you Wafcon these days, not reliance on past glory.
A lesson here to all indigenous Nigerian coaches – once you have been found out, adapt! adapt! adapt!
The NFF ineptitude is one thing, inability of our indigenous coaches to work on their craft, inability to improve themselves, unavailability to update their methods will always mean they wallow in mediocrity.
In Wafcon 2025, Super Falcons opponents never knew what to expect. The team had been managed by Randy Waldrum for like 3 years with his more South American brand of football built around a structure, organisation, and a tactical approach that prioritise defence ahead of attack.
That was what our oppositions last year were used to expecting.
Come in Madugu, who, for all intent and purposes, was an unknown quantity.
Madugu took a more different approach, returning the Super Falcons to the methods that won copious Wafcons back in the days. His method prioritised attack ahead of defence within a loose framework openness, expensive play and reliance on long balls and crosses (to big, bulky, bullish centre forwards) to overwhelm and grind down oppositions which was epitomised in the demolition of Zambia in the quarter finals and the turnaround against Zambia in the final itself.
Madugu’s methods – a sharp, distinct, radical departure from Waldrum’s – caught oppositions unawares and won us the trophy.
Here is the problem: in 2026, oppositions are well aware of Madugu’s methods and are now better, far better, prepared to counter, curtail, neutralise him.
In fact, Madugu had 3 problems:
1. His methods were not as sharp as they were in 2025 due to complacency and local coaches’ inability to continually improve themselves (NFF or no NFF), 2. Opposition teams are now supremely ready for whatever Madugu would throw at them.
3. Madugu’s Super Falcons had regressed from just 1 year ago as the coach himself (ever so averse and blind to the “concept of continuous improvement”) failed to scout for hungry, fresh, vibrant talents that can maximise the fading possibilities inherent in methods (that are now an open secret).
All of these are compounded by NFF’s ineptitude. But this article is not about NFF, it’s all about Coach Madugu’s behaviour as a crucial microcosm of how ALL indigenous Nigerian coaches are blind to the concept of continuous improvement and, hence, fail woeful to improve themselves.
NFF will not improve Madugu. Madugu has to value his own career, integrity and goals more than the NFF values them.
NFF or no NFF, Madugu failed to improve his methods, he failed to assemble hungry players, he failed to do his homework work, he failed to motivate the players enough.
I am not here to thrash Madugu, oh no. Unlike fans who claim he has no methods, no tactics, no strategy, no technique. I disagree. He has these, and more… and I applaud him for our 10th Wafcon win.
However, indigenous coaches can still achieve “mild to moderate” success in spite of NFF’s failings. Madugu failed yakata! 1.No Wafcon trophy. 2 No qualification for the world cup through the front door. 3. No qualification for the world cup through the back door.
Three-pronged failure for a coach who could easily have achieved at least 1 of these despite NFF’s ineptitude.
Moral of the story: As we, or as I have seen over more recent history, indigenous coaches have their methods which have been proven to give them wins. However, these wins are fleeting, fugacious, fly-by-night. They often win pockets of battles but are defeated in the ultimate war.
Horrific player selection is killing them. Look at Ladan Bosso: an indigenous coach I like. That one will flood his team with northerners and hope to perform wonders.
Madugu overrelied on the same team that won him the Wafcon last year. After it became clear after our first match against Malawi that that team was not up to the job, he became confused in his player selection for the remainder of the tournament.
Anyway, enough said. NFF or no NFF, indigenous coaches should take their own careers more seriously, update their skills, imbibe a “continuous improvement” mindset, and seek to adapt to changing circumstances with team selections that will let their own methods to flourish.
But would they? When they know that even if they fail, they’ll be recycled after a while?
I see how SA coaches take improvement seriously and they are scattered around the continent.
2 RSA coaches faced off against each other yesterday in the Tanzanian league.
Why are our main coaches not often doing so? At least, if they don’t want to train themselves, they can “scope” those clubs to enroll them for short courses.
Ladan bosso is the head of Nigeria coaches for a while.
Why won’t mediocrity wear a garment of allure?
The “fall” of Garba Many, the only local coach whose methods I admired those days ana the also ran nature of our clubs in “ordinary” CAF competitions consistently made me thrash local coaches at any level.
I understand the trained ones who should have ideally managed our cadet teams (God forbids that they are thrust with senior teams again) can’t “settle” NFF who is hellbent of justifying quota coaches at the expense of our catching up with other african nations.
We so forget that since Osimhen won the u17 world cup, we have not made any progress on the afcon level.
The last time we won under 17 AFCON was in 2007, 19 years ago.
That tournament has been every year since 2024 since world cup is every year till at least 2029 and we have not appeared.
Because we still trust coaches that prefer to submit to NFF than lose their privileges now and later.
The day any local coach looks NFF in the eye and dares them to tamper with his list to ensure quota is unfruitful, I’ll start beaming my eyes on them because Nigeria might have woken up.
How can use take misguided list from NFF who have a “secured” 4 years term, perform badly with that list and be remembered for the failure alone rather than tell us it’s NFF fault.
How many of NFF darlings since 2017 call-ups at all cadet levels are in reckoning today? Yet, locals will keep doing the same thing and expect results.
It’s criminal to say foreign born who spared your blushes time and time again only 12 months ago don’t compare with local born, yet we had an ignominy of not showcasing our talent on the global stage next year. Ego of doom.
I hope Gusau is gone and let subsequent leaders know that errors, catalogue of errors, are punishable since other African nations are not waiting for us to rise after they’ve tasted gold from CAF and FIFA competitions.
Nigeria should be ashamed.
Malawi was open in first half yesterday and the change their coach made before half time just buried Cameroon attack.
That’s what modern coaches see from the touchline today.
Not barking at players with mundane talks and patterns they are alien to at their better coached foreign clubs
As usual@Deo, you are spot on your analysis of the Falcons lack of performance/achievement at the Wafcon 2026, compared to their all Conquering SF of 2025 in the 2024 edition.
Where I do not entirely agree with you is your comments on Madugu’s tactics in 2026 been found out by other African coaches after his successes in 2025. If we want to be fair to Madugu- I was the first to criticise his team selection for the playoffs match against South Africa Banyana, where I got perplexed by Madugu starting 30+ aged Ohale, Assisat Oshoala and in paticularly Francisca Ordega in match that he is facing a quick and pacy Southern African team that rely on speed and quick transitions to hurt opponents.
At the time I made that comment I had not watched the match but decided to watch the full 90minutes after on CAF TV YouTube and I saw some reason why did what he did, and I cut him some slack after. Madugu is a very pragmatic coach! Some of his critics don’t understand football to know that Surprising you opposition coaches with squad rotation- depending on opposition lineups – is a masterstroke strategy that modern decent Coaches need to deploy in crucial, pressured matches, where neophytes may not have the heart and discipline required at that level.
I saw in that match, that Nigeria outplayed the South Africans in 90mins of the game, and but for ill luck and their fantastic goal keeper (remember Swart-the South African goalkeeper) won the Woman of the match award in that 2-1 win, not any of their outfield players did. Had Nigerian Super Falcons converted their first 2 chances- Ellis and her wards would have been all over the place- and Nigeria would have increased their tally in 2nd half.
I don’t agree the Southern African coach is or was better than Madugu in any form. Madugu beat her at Semi-final stage just last year July on his way to mission 10 delivery, and his been SA women’s coach for about 5 years now. Her team may not have qualified for the KO rounds where they were also knockout by Morocco. At the group stage, she lost 2-1 to Tanzania and struggle to a 2-2 draw with Ivory Coast. Chinua Achebe advised that “those whose Palm Kernels have been cracked by benevolent gods should not forget to be humble.
Even the Qtr final statistics is more revealing where sheer luck favoured the Cameroonians with an inspired and determined goalkeeper robing Madugu’s ward of overwhelming victory they deserved but for poor goalkeeping, from the usually reliable Nnadozie, gifting Cameroon a cheap whilst Michaely Bihina, in Cameroon goal denied Gift Monday tap in, Uchenna Kanu blind, point blank “unsaveable” header, Ajibade’s 20 yard screamer and Esther Okoronkwo conspiring to place her 1 v 1 chance or squaring a free Oshoala for a tap in in added time at the end of 2nd half.
Apart from the Malawi opening loss caused largely by complacency on both Madugu and his wards, over confidence and lack of adequate preparations for Wafcon 2026, and this is where the blame for the 2026 Wafcon failure must be attributed largely to- the falterring NFF who always handicap indigenous Nigerian coaches, but give all the financial and logistics support whenever they deal with “foreign” Coaches.
Check some of the metrics for the Qtr final match against Madugu’s Super Falcons and the Cameroonian lionesses:
1) 60% possession for SF compared to 40% for the Cameroonians;
2) 18 shots on goal, 9 shots on target for SF against 8 total shots and only 2 shots on target from Cameroonian lionesses, one of which- a 35 yards away freekick fumbled by the Sieving Basket Nnadozie;
E) far more passes in dangerous areas and X4.5 goals to Cameroons X1.0 Expected goals.
Try go watch that game again SF v Cameroonian lionesses in full and you see that it wasn’t Madugu and his tactics that got found out, but sheer luck decided to just leave Nigerian SF in that tournament. Zambia that Nigerian Super Falcon beat in their 2nd group match, even with only 10 women fost part of the match, is a better team than Malawi and the Cameroonian ladies and they did beat Malawi and Egypt ( mercilessly, 6-0) and should have ideally topped our group with 6 points and +6 Gd compared to same points and a +4 Gd for Nigeria; and same 6 points and a +2 Gd for Malawi, who should under normal rules of football should never progressed but for CAF convoluted rules discounting every goal scored against bottom team Egypt, in the same group.
Yes I agree our local coaches don’t upgrade their knowledge and skills of the game and that contributes to some failure after initial success but these training costs good money individual Nigerian coaches cannot afford- so ineffectual NFF should be sending these coaches to refresher courses every now and then to keep up ti date.
What I don’t like is the creeping “inferiority complex” mentality of some arm chair critics of Nigerian coaches – who refuse to acknowledge the difficult and crippling conditions they are forced to work in- but believe anything “foreign/white coaches,” are better than indigenous Nigerian ones- therefore any journey-man, African gravy chasing white coach is better than the best Nigerian coaches! But the records don’t support such claim: In Super Falcons World Cup history, only one of the Coaches was able to get Nigeria to the Quarter Finals of the Women’s World Cup and that coach is a full-blooded Nigeria called Ismaila Mabo- Neither Thomas Dannerby (white Swedish) nor the noisy Randy Waldrum ( USA white) was able to axhieve such a feat in their years in charge of SF. Indeed Waldrum, been credited wrongly with “Structure, Personnel and methods” for Madugu’s success at last year Wafcon could not even have a podium finish (not even a Bronze medal) at the 2022 Wafcon he superintended.
Our Nigerian coaches need more support and constructive criticism
– but what I don’t like is these double speaking and negative criticism everytime they falter but never given any credit when they succeed with bare-string budgets and lack of sufficient logistics support from the badly and corruptly managed NFF.
To win tournaments in this modern age, you must have all or most of these elements:
1. A visionary, tactically superior coaching staff. A head coach and assistants that think like professional city architects.
They anticipate current and future problems, map out opponent strategies, and design the perfect counter-plan using the resources at their disposal.
We saw it with Cameroon’s experienced female coach and her powerhouse French assistants, who were the real tactical henchmen for this victory.
2. A competent, incorruptible FA Chairman, who’d learnt a lot observing FA admins during his playing days.
A clearly passionate leader, preferably an accomplished former athlete or footballer who is already rich and fulfilled, and so don’t care about diverting funds or “saving” money through last-minute, cheap appointments. Example: Samuel Eto’ Fils.
Coaching appointents are 100% merit-driven and he has not time to waster with a non-performer or start calculating how much he would lose. You can be sacked within a month of appointment.
Not like career politicians, like Gusau and his board of money-grabbers, who cling to power, failure after failure, and dismissively label honest critiques as “people just talking.”
All current failed coaches in Nigerai from the U17 to U20 to U23 to Women are still in charge and some have been promoted to the enxt cadre.
3. An elite goalkeeper and an organized defense, who can only be beaten by absolute genius or vision This was the core philosophy of Alex Fergusson and Pep Guardiola, and we saw it again with this Cameroonian side.
When you ensure maximum security in your own home, you gain the peace of mind to attack. Even if your frontline is made of attack dogs, a bulletproof defense makes them look like lions.
4. A functional midfield and attack. Your forward line only need to be decent, not necessarily the world’s best.
As long as the defense and goalkeeper are top-gradeand almost invincible, you will win 95% of your matches. And if the game goes to penalties? Forget it! You’ve already won, even if the opponents have Messi and Ronaldo on their side.
5. Game management and opposition analysis. The coaching staff must read the game like grandmasters in a chess game
We saw how South Africa’s Desiree Ellis instructed her team to absorb Nigeria’s pressure for the first 30 minutes. She anticipated that Nigeria, believing they had the superior frontline, would come out of the blocks gung-ho, all-out attack.
This meant the SF would leave gaping pockets of space in the back with this approach, as Alozie and Oladapo pushed forward to join the attack for an early goal, leaving Kgatlana lurking to face an ageing Ohale and bumbling Demehin on fast counter breaks.
We also saw this exact masterclass in yesterday’s final. Malawi’s notorious Chawinga sisters threw everything they had at Cameroon in the first 20 minutes. But Cameroon’s keeper and defence didn’t forget the the technical bench’s instruction and stood tall, absorbing the pressure like a sponge.
Next thing you know… Boom! And Cameroon hits them on the counter, and Malawi is suddenly down 3-0.
Just like that, Malawi’s giant confidence completely deflated, just like in the Nigeria-SA game last Thursday, and they started panicking and misplacing passes.
Pure tactical genius from the bench.
In modern games, coaches win games, not individual player talents.
Coaches don’t win games; Players win games! Otherwise Morocco ladies should have won the last 2 Wafcons- where they were beaten by Madugu tutored Super Falcons last year, and by tue Valentine Nguele superintended Cameroonian lionesses last week.
These are both indigenous African coaches beating a Jorge Vilda tutored Moroccan ladies in two consecutive Wafcons- same Vilda won the Women’s World Cup 2023 with Spain women, beating all comers never mind the poor African teams best of which got knocked out Round of 16.
The question you should answer is: If Coaches win matches, how come Jorge Vilda won almighty 2023 women’s World cup with Spanish ladies; but has failed woefully, twice in a row in both Wafcon 2024 and 2026, to win ordinary Wafcon with Moroccan ladies?
hello friends,
ithink its time we stop complaining and and move to occupy the glass house and send these miscreants out of our football
@ Deo, this is not about thrashing or undermining Madugu but reality. Amaju once said during the appointment of Pesero, that only two Nigerian coaches are qualified to handle the SE are in active coaching, that others do not possess the minimum qualification. That time only Amunike(heartland) and I think the other guy in Albania are in active coaching, people like Aigbogun, Abdullahi, Oliseh, Eguavon and one or two others who are qualified are either punditry or administration. Till date I doubt if nigeria can boast of 15 caf A licence and above or it’s equivalent.
Ogunmodede former Remo stars just got his uefa b license few months ago reason he was absent during remo caf league, as he requires caf b minimum to be on the line. The same with Aduku of Edo girls during wafu b two years ago.
Madugu have been within the SF setup close to 15years taking various roles. He should know better, but the problem with Nigerian coaches is they are to relax since they can lobby to get the job.
I hope this will serve as a lesson to these coaches and also NFF to review there selection process and let coaches know the importance of knowledge upgrading