Super Falcons’s Head Coach Thomas Dennerby says that the team will go to the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in France with the best legs available.
Dennerby who is delighted with the maximum support of the Nigeria Football Federation for his entire programme ahead of the World Cup, insists that in order to select the best players, there is need to give as many good players as possible the opportunity to show what they can do.
“We have different targets, of course. The first target is to find really good players that will be in the first list that we will send to FIFA. We have to be very sure we have the right players,” Dennerby told NFF. com.
“It’s very important that you are one hundred per cent sure that you have picked the ones that you really want. Also, we have a camp in Spain at the beginning of April where we will play the Canada Women National team and it is very important that some of the players in this camp come to Spain.”
Dennerby, who led the domestic players to third place finish in the maiden edition of the Women’s WAFU Cup tournament in 2018, notes that some of the players will leave the team eventually and the domestic camp offers opportunity to know who has the ability.
“Soon, we probably need to change some of the players in the national team, and when the time comes we have to know who is best suitable. There is a lot of good reason for having the domestic camp.”
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The Nigeria Football Federation has availed the Super Falcons with the opportunity of playing six games so far this year in preparation for the FIFA World Cup in France.
Speaking on the team’s preparation so far, Dennerby insists the team has been getting better with every game, expressing hope that they will have a good performance at the World Cup.
“If you look at the first game we played this year in China against the Chinese Women National team, we had a good first half but the players became tired in the second half and I know the reason for that,” he added.
“However, having observed that Romanian defenders were slow from their first game, we tried to supply our attackers faster in the second game and won 4-1.
“Coming to Cyprus, with the good quality of the opponents we showed some improvement from the first tournament. We were unlucky in the first game against Austria with a player (goalkeeper Tochukwu Oluehi) picking a red card in the 6th minute.
“We played with only ten players for 84 minutes but we really did well in the game. The girls showed a lot of good attitude. But the good thing is that we got two wins in Cyprus and the girls showed strong attitude, they were quick, nice running, hardworking, good decision –making and all these are necessary to boost their confidence.”
By Adeboye Amosu
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So far, what I can deduce are the following:
° Dennerby appears driven to push the Falcons towards a meaningful outing in France.
° The Swede has been able to identify that:
-his ladies have the propensity to tire in second halves.
-he can call on pacy striker to cause problems to oppositions in second halves.
-he has players who are quick, pacey, hardworking, and potentially have good decision –making capacity.
° The NFF is squarely behind the coach and her players. They are leaving no stones unturned to ensure the Super Falcons have a meaningful outing in France.
The preparations are going well; below, one of the players in camp narrates how the training sessions are going.
Rivers Angels dependable defender Mary Ologbosere, who represented Nigeria at the 2018 Wafu tournament, spoke to Brillafm.net about how hard Dennerby is training ladies in preparation for the World Cup in June.
The camp opened recently with largely homebased players however some foreign based pros are expected to join the team in preparations for April’s preparatory match against Canada.
Speaking on the training sessions, Ologbosere said : “So far in camp has been intense in terms of preparation.
We are glad we are getting great support from the NFF. The girls have a good rapport regardless of foreign or home-based.
The coach has been supportive and tried to communicate well with all players.” End of quote.
I can only applaud the NFF for keeping their promise of adequately preparing out Falcons for this world cup.
Oparanozie, Umotong and now Ologbosere are among members of the Falcons team who have gone on record to praise the NFF for the team’s preparations and how this has helped them build a healthy camaraderie.
Things are looking good. 🙂