Super Falcons defender Onome Ebi says the team is battle ready for Monday’s crucial clash against hosts France – their last Group A match of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, reports Completesports.com.
The African champions must avoid defeat against the host nation to secure a place in the Round of 16.
The Super Falcons lost their first match 3-0 to Norway, but recovered from the setback, edging out Korea Republic 2-0 in the second fixture.
France have been in blistering form in the competition thrashing Korea Republic 4-0 in the first game before securing a narrow 2-1 win against Norway in the penultimate encounter.
The Les Bleues head into the game as overwhelming favourites, but Ebi insists the Super Falcons will be up to the challenge.
“We are in shape and 100% ready ⚽️& #superfalconsofnigeria #france2019,” Ebi tweeted.
France occupy top spot in the group with six points. Norway and Nigeria have three points each but the former have a better goal difference.
By Adeboye Amosu
16 Comments
Let’s get the job done Super Falcons. By God’s grace, victory is ours. God bless Nigeria!!!
I am hoping you ladies get a draw or even a win but if you lose, please don’t do so by a wide margin later today.
The race for best 4 third place teams looks like this:
1. Australia: 3 points.
2. China: 3 points.
3. Nigeria: 3 points.
4. Argentina: 1 point.
5. Cameroon: 0 point.
6. Chile: 0 point.
Permutations:
-In their last group match, I don’t see Chile winning Thailand by maximum 3:0 which will still see them finish below the Super Falcons with inferior goals difference.
-I think the best Cameroon can hope for is a draw against New Zealand. Even if they win, they have to do so by 2 goals or more to catch up with the Super Falcons if we lose narrowly to France.
It is looking promising for Nigeria. A draw or a very slim loss to France (with results elsewhere going our way) should be enough to qualify us for the second round.
Yes you are on point , the falcon should defend well and deeply too.They should pack the box and stop France from drop ball in the eighteen yard, because French goals will probably come from set pieces , therefore they should learn how to defend conners!!..Oparanozie has no pace and positioning intelligence, therefore she should be drop and allowed to come in in the second half ,by then the French defenders must have tired out .Asisat should be the point woman on one on one ball with French defenders , by God grace e will get some thing from the match ,otherwise it won’t be easy !!
Uncle France, I associate myself with your sentiments but how I wish it wasn’t the hosts France that we would be facing.
Going into this match, I feel exactly the same as I felt when Nigeria faced Argentina in the last match of the world cup last year: the similarities couldn’t be more identical!
One loss and one win in the first two matches and needing at least a win or a draw from the last group stage match against a Super Power to guarantee passage to the next round.
The main differences are that France, unlike Argentina, are hosts and, unlike the men’s world cup, there is the possibility to qualify as one of the best thirds in 4 groups.
The turnout in Rennes on Monday is predicted to be large – Brittany already has a strong tradition of supporting women’s sport.
Now, even though France are considered potential favourites to win the tournament – the hosts want to build on the men’s team’s win in 2018 to become the first country to hold both World Cups at the same time – I think they would like to do this in style be going the entire tournament undefeated.
Think of it: if they win today and go on to lift the trophy, they would have done so undefeated. So, a lot is riding on this match as it is truly of prime significance to the manner in which they hope to win the tournament.
All eyes on Dennerby.
How will he prepare his girls?
How will he spot when things are not going to plan and then take corrective actions?
Substitutions – will this be timely?
Starting 11 – will these be selected to neutralise the French?
It is not just on the coach though – the players will have to stand up to be counted!
The French – I suspect – will adopt the art of psychological warfare. They may seek to demoralise our ladies with quick fire goals so they try to come back into the match, in the process, leaving the back-door open for more goals.
That – I suspect – was one of the reasons why Amaju Pinnick elected for a foreign coach: to be able to anticipate the antics of high quality teams and devise strategies to neutralise these.
Today, one of the outcomes of the match would be to see the justification for going for Dennerby.
Correction : Uncle Steve, not Uncle France!
They should have won Norway or at least drew, Nigeria always love the hard way. Plain truth they cannot beat France. Am sorry. They lost it when they lost their first match, let’s be realistic to ourselves nah, how are they gonna beat France. How?
True talk how e wan happen??? I pray it does but its not a realistic thing! I just hope we dont concede more than 1 goal so that we win wait for miracle as 3rd best 4 teams. Simple realistic thinking
Same question was asked when Barcelona beat Liverpool by 3.0. ‘How could Liverpool overturn the deficit against all mighty Barcelona and win in the return match’ was the question on everybody’s lips, How????!!! But it happened(against all odds). In life, u don’t have to give up easily no matter the circumstance. This is one of the reasons why most us don’t succeed. We believe that some people are meant to succeed while some are meant not to! What a big fat lie from the pit of hell! Everything is possible if u believe. Now the question is, do Our gals have what it takes to beat France?? The answers is: hell yes, they do!! They should just go out there and make history for their motherland. Pride and arrogance will pull France down going by their self perceived pedigree, this will be their undoing.
*will
We need Spain to beat China , that will open the doors for us to qualify even if we lose against France!!.. But in this permutation, we must not lose by a wide margin, let say a single goal is OK..with the expectations that Spain can beat China with at least two to three unreply goals ?!!
I am with you again on that bro.
China is a power house even if they will loose it can’t be more than a goal margin but i join you in prayers so that china does not even end up nick a point of a win at the expense of spain.
As I predicted earlier (above), the French team wants to go all out to win today’s match against Nigeria partly because they have not been overly satisfied with their performances in the first 2 games despite coming out with maximum 6 points.
In a press conference I monitored (clip below – you might be redirected to FIFA website to watch it due to copyright) the French coach laid out her approach to this match pointing out that although she would make changes to the squad, these are not expected to be wholesale.
Perhaps, French player Emmanuelle Ingant summed it up on Fifa.com when she said: “We could improve on our ball conservation.
I think we have the technical capacities to impose our game even more. Because of the context we’re in, we want to score quickly and we play forward a lot when really we should just keep the ball.
We need to recover and accelerate instead of accelerating all the time. The first two matches helped us to understand that.”
Asisat Oshoala on her part has been quoted as saying:”We just have to be technically better against them and stay concentrated in the game”. End of quote.
Indeed, maximum concentration will be key if we are to get anything out of this encounter.
Press conference of French team:
https://youtu.be/itLotBnCuJ4
Athleticism, grit, power and pace. 4 key things we are going to be needing in this game today. Just like i said previously, having managed to secure 3 points so far, the other task is to secure a respectable goal difference that will be enough to see us through as one of 4 best third placed teams. Thinking otherwise before this tournament was a typical case of over-expectation and over-enthusiasm. The Onus is now on the technical crew to device ways of denying France ample time and space on the ball all through this encounter. Our play against Korea wasn’t spectacular, but the results was welcome wholeheartedly. I wouldn’t mind saying same about today’s game when the referee blows the final whistle. Give us this day o Lord….!
We have to defend collectively and not allow the French too much space to operate. We must play compact football and hope on counter for our goals. We should minimize errors in passes and try to recover possession whenever we lose it
Nigerian as mess up in open game agains norway our destiny is no more in our hand all the same i whish them best of lucky