Nigeria U-20 head coach Moses Aduku has expressed disappointment with the team’s 2-0 loss to Spain in the opening group F game of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
The reigning European champions swept aside the Nigerian ladies with a goal in each half, scored by Marisa Garcia and Alba Cerrato.
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Reacting after the game, Aduku, in a chat with FIFA.com, expressed displeasure with the performance of the players against Spain.
However, he noted that Nigeria will qualify for the knockout stages of the competition in Poland.
“We did not come to the party today; we did not play.
But all the same, we have two more games to play; we will get it right. Of course, we are going to go through [to the knockout rounds].
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“I am confident. We did not play today.”
The result leaves Nigeria with some work to do in Group F. The Falconets will now regroup and turn their focus to their second group game against China PR on Thursday, September 10, as they seek to get their campaign back on track at the global tournament.
4 Comments
This poor coach said they were ready for Spain, but you also did not come up to the party. Laughable.
The majority of these players struggle with football intelligence, a deficit that is unfortunately compounded by a lack of coaching capable of developing it.
Nigeria needs to completely revamp its football system by combining education with sports and grooming players right from high school. Furthermore, football administrators must be competent and passionate, and we must hire intelligent coaches capable of developing our players at all levels.
@Jaybee, I honestly don’t see any outstanding coaches in the Nigerian league right now, male or female. And that’s less an indictment of the coaches themselves than of the rotten coaching-development system we have built.
I struggle to remember the last Nigerian team I watched and thought, This coach has genuinely tactically outsmarted the opposition. Maybe Enyimba under Okey Emordi, the U-20 and Dream Team under Samson Siasia, or the Super Eagles under Stephen Keshi. Since then, too much of our football has become “go out there, fight, press them, and God will help us.”
The NFF has practically abandoned serious coaching education. Many coaches are poorly paid and can barely afford CAF courses, let alone the continuous education and exposure needed to understand modern football. Then we recycle the same coaches and ideas and wonder why the results remain the same.
I watched Aduku’s Edo Queens at the CAF Women’s Champions League in Morocco, and honestly, it was painful. Against properly drilled opposition, the tactical deficiencies were glaring. The ball was simply being pumped into the opponents’ area and our players were expected to fight for it. Who still plays football like that in 2026? Even some Ghanaian teams I’ve watched in WAFU Zone B looked considerably better organised than the Nigerian representatives.
And have you watched Nigerian clubsides in CAF competitions lately? Finidi is doing something at Enyimba, but whenever we meet a North African side or Mamelodi Sundowns, it often looks like two completely different levels of football. These days, even beating a team from Comoros has become an examination for some of our clubs.
Nigeria has the talent. What we increasingly lack is the technical machinery to convert that talent into properly coached teams.
Football has moved on, but our coaching system appears to have missed the memo.
@Papafem
You have hit the nail on the head a million percent. This is exactly what I have been saying for ages. It is heartbreaking to admit, but Nigerian football is an absolute eyesore in 2026 and our continental irrelevance is a national embarrassment.
Look no further than the last WAFCON; the Cape Verde women’s national team displayed a level of coordinated, structured football that made Nigeria look completely lost.
If Cape Verde had a lethal point person like Malawi’s Chawinga, they wouldn’t have just played a draw with Cameroun, they probably would have beaten them and qualified comfortably. Instead, our teams rely on raw talent while everyone else relies on tactical play.
We need to invest on Tactical coaches to drill all the local coaches in Nigeria for two to three years. Let the NFF bring German, Spanish, Dutch tactical think tankers to help us develop our coaches.
After then, we might see an improvement but not at the expense of the players welfare.