Nigeria’s Super Falcons will take on Thailand in the seventh-place classification match in the Cyprus International Women’s Cup at the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium, Lanarca on Wednesday, reports Completesports.com.
Thomas Dennerby’s ladies lost 1-0 to the Red Flames of Belgium in their final Group C game on Monday with Elena Dohnt scoring the winning goal in the seventh minute.
Super Falcons opened their campaign in the competition with a 4-1 defeat to Austria but recovered to beat Slovakia 4-3 in their second game.
The reigning African champions finished third in the group with three points from three games.
Thailand like the Super Falcons finished third in Group B with three points.
The super Falcons are using the invitational tournament to prepare for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France in June.
They will face hosts France, Norway and Korea Republic in the first round of the World Cup.
By Adeboye Amosu
7 Comments
The Super Falcons will be hoping to maintain their “loss-win consistency” with a win against Thailand tomorrow after having lost, won, lost, won and then lose their last 5 matches against China, Romania, Austria, Slovakia and Belgium respectively.
The ladies from Thailand, who have featured in 2 World Cup tournaments in their history, come to tomorrow’s match with a decent attack and a decent defence with 6 goals scored and 6 goals conceded to their name from their 3 matches thus far in this tournament.
The Super Falcons, in the same number of matches, have scored 5 goals but have leaked in 8 with a deficit of 3.
This was not the way Dennerby and his ladies wanted this tournament to go however they can take some positives from this experience. If nothing, Dennerby should by now know the strengths of his squad which can be enhanced and the weaknesses which should be neutralised.
As I wrote yesterday, I actually see the 1:0 defeat to Belgium as a step in the right direction for the following reasons: 1) It was the first time in a number of matches that they did not concede a goal in the second half (particularly against a strong Belgium side) and 2) the number of goals they conceded was the lowest in three matches against teams ranked higher than them in the FIFA rankings.
Even in the Africa Cup of Nations, the only match they lost – against South Africa – saw them concede the only goal in the second half; so there is improvement.
You get the sense that Dennerby is trying to add steel to the make-up of the team; his ladies will need this. In the World Cup, they will come against teams who are more tactically astute than them. Only yesterday, France defeated Uruguay 6:0 to send a signal to their world cup opponents that they mean business.
The Super Falcons need to be a set-up that will be hard, even for a team like France, to break down easily. The slim loss to Belgium is a start. If they can build up on that with a convincing win against Thailand tomorrow, then, fans (like me) could start thinking of possibilities at the World Cup.
Spot on Deo.
Honestly I do not see the falcons proceeding to the knockout stages of the world cup.Having colossal opponents like Norway,France and Korea sends a very strong message,it’s needless for us swimming in the ocean of optimism.
It is another world cup we will go just to participate and home bound after the final whistle to end proceedings immediately after our last group game.
Fortunately for the ladies,fans won’t hold them to it rather are expecting a team that will go to the battlefield with one thing in mind,to fight for the love of the nation with pride.
Hopefully the team will get better with the experience and build towards a better impregnable team for the future.
God bless Nigeria!
Well at the 2011 Women’s world cup, the Super Falcons – parading a young Oparanozie – had their best outing since the turn of the century in the competition.
They had mighty France, Germany and Canada (ranked 6 by FIFA at the time) to contend with.
The Uche Eucheria-tutored side gave an impressive account of themselves narrowly losing 1:0 to both France (ranked 7 in 2011) and Germany (ranked 2 in 2011) before causing a shock by defeating Canada 1:0 in the final match to earn 3 points and -1 goals difference in a tough group indeed.
Nigeria were ranked 27 against Canada ranked 6 by FIFA at the time.
They did not qualify for the second round on that occasion simply because there were only 16 teams in the tournament at the time.
What was must remembered is that in 2015 – when the number of teams increased to 24 – Sweden qualified for the knockout stages from Nigeria’s group with only 3 points (the 3 points they earned by defeating our Super Falcons).
So, if the Super Falcons achieve the same 3 points this time around that they achieved in 2011, then they have a chance of qualifying for the second round.
Now tell me, if they can take 3 points from such a tough group in 2011 [with teams ranked 3 (Germany), 7 (France) and 6 (Canada) by FIFA], it cannot be impossible for them to take 3 points from their upcoming opponents at this world cup [France (3), Norway (13), and Korea (14) according to FIFA rankings].
Dennerby was brought in to do a job; he will have to earn his wages in France (nothing is impossible)!
Good analysis @deo,you see 2011 is not 2019 it’s a different generation of falcons.
This falcons have conceded so many goals against highly ranked teams and struggled against lesser opponents in the continent.
The Amaju Pinnick NFF abandoned the team after their victorious triumph in Cameroon 2yrs ago.This really affected the team and slowed their progression which was evident in their average performances in Ghana.
Having said that,the manager is working hard to build a team worthy of representing the nation unfortunately he started this preparations rather late and there are many rookies in that team who will gain from this experience of participating in a global senior tournament.
However,teams like Norway France playing at home will be unplayable and you have the dreaded team from Asia I think we will have our hands full but will learn from the experience.
I am not expecting nothing other than a falcons team who will go to field and not lie on the pitch only to be ran over by their more illustrious opponents.
Thankfully, the Super Falcons have now played almost equal number of games as their world cup opponents since Dennerby’s first official match against France last April.
In addition to the France friendly, they played 2 Afcon qualifiers, 6 matches at the Afcon proper, 2 matches at the China invitation tournament and will play 4 matches in the Cyprus Cup.
All these matches within 12 months are almost the same number of games that Norway, France and South Korea have played in the same period.
So, our Falcons have been busy.
One will expect that they are learning valuable lessons from the defensive i frailties that have seen them concede heavily – and from evidence of their 1:0 to Belgium, one can see signs of improvement.
It will be hard for them to argue that they have not been adequately prepared for this tournament – they have had 3 tournaments (Afcon, China and Cyprus cups) within 12 months to identify strengths and weaknesses and to fine-tune their strategy.
Some members of that 2011 Falcons team (the several under-20 decent Falconets teams) are in this present Falcons set up so, they are not bereft of quality, pedigree, youth or experience.
There is hope for this Falcons side.
I am really looking forward to the women’s world cup in June.
Female football has really come of age. These women are so technical and they know how to celebrate goals too.
See below some truly funny women’s goal celebrations.
https://youtu.be/XzSWdi2Ln5k