Reigning African champions, the Super Falcons of Nigeria defeated Slovakia 4-3 in their second Group C game at the Cyprus Invitational Tournament on Friday, reports Completesports.com.
Thomas Dennerby’s ladies fell to a 4-1 embarassing defeat to Austria in their first game in the competition on Wednesday.
Dennerby made seven changes to the side that lost to the Austrians and named Barcelona Ladies star, Asisat Oshoala among the substitutes.
Petite midfielder Rita Chikwelu gave the Super Falcons the lead in the eighth minutes.
The West Africans continued their dominance afterwards and got the second goal through centre-back Osinachi Ohale in the 28th minute.
Chikwelu added the third 10 minutes later.
The talented midfielder was denied the chance of registering a hat-trick when her fine strike was chalked off for offside in the 56th minute.
Slovakia pulled one back through Jana Vojteková in the 61st minute.
Lucia Haršanyová
further halved the deficit when she scored from the spot in the 72nd minute.
The Europeans completed the comeback when Haršanyová
scored from another penalty four minutes later.
Substitute Anam Imo scored the winning goal for Nigeria eight minutes from time after she was teed up by Oshoala.
The Super Falcons will face Belgium in their next game in the competition on Sunday.
by Adeboye Amosu
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COMMENTS
Time for this Dennerby is or whatever is name is, to go, he has brought nothing significant to the team. From 3-0 up o! I am scared of their World Cup outing
@Adenine,it’s a friendly tournament he is using different players to execute this games to assess their readiness for the world cup.
I believe they will come good in time for the world cup.They may not make it to the next round considering their group opponents who are relatively stronger but shall give a good account of themselves.
Coach Thomas Dennerby continues to preside over a Super Falcons side that has the tendency to collapse spectacularly in second half of matches – in friendly or competitive matches.
Having responded admirably from the shambolic 4:1 loss to Austria in their first match – a match in which they had also capitulated shoddily in the second half – to race to a 3:0 lead against Slovakia, they blew it all away in the second half with the Slovakians drawing level in a 10 minutes spell (between 67 and 77 minutes) to make it 3:3.
But for the 82nd strike of substitute Anam Imo, the match could have ended in an embarrassing draw with the Nigerian ladies wondering how they managed to let victory slip through their fingers with such a healthy 3:0 score-line.
As it stands, this fortuitous 4:3 victory against Slovakia, currently ranked 45 by FIFA, means they have to defeat Belgium, currently ranked 21, to make it out of the group.
Put that to one side; one puzzle I can’t seem to solve is why the Super Falcons under coach Dennerby are so porous in second half of matches.
Since the Swede took over, the Falcons have conceded a total of 20 goals from 12 matches. Shockingly, 16 of these goals have come in second half of matches!
Not only do they concede in second halves but they concede heavy! In the second half, they conceded 5 against France, 4 against Austria and 3 against Slovakia.
What can be the cause? Fatigue? Loss of concentration? Disorientation ? or by that time, their opponents had already worked them out?
Whatever the case may be, Dennerby should sort this deficiency out or else, the likes of France and South Korea (who few months ago defeated Indonesia 12:0) will show little pity at the world cup!
Deo, we suffered from very strange officiating in the 2nd half. All 3 penalties awarded to Slovakia were dubious. It was like the ref was on a mission. From reports we were so much better than Slovakia but didn’t account for the ref. I heard we missed several chances to score more and Chikwelu even missed a clear chance to make it 4nil before the ref’s drama. Anyway, i heard they played very well which is most important and there would be VAR at the World Cup thankfully. Let’s hope for a better performance against Belgium.
_Nigeria vs Belgium Preview_
Super Falcons lady of hour Rita Chikwelu will be hoping to inspire her team to another blistering start against Belgium tomorrow as she did in the match versus Slovakia with her first goal coming less than 10 minutes before helping herself to a beautiful brace in 38 minutes.
She almost bagged herself a hat-trick but her effort was ruled offside.
Rita has been one of the mainstays of Dennerby’s era and she is the Falcon’s second highest goal scorer since the Swede took over with 4 goals to her name thus far.
Super Falcons fans will need her and joint highest goal scorer of the Dennerby era Oshoala (with 6 goals) to be in boiling hot form to stop the Belgian ladies who are currently on an amazing run of 8 games unbeaten dating back to June 2018.
The Belgian ladies, who have never qualified for any FIFA Women World Cup in history, come to this encounter having scored 17 goals in their last eight games conceding only 5 goals.
In the same number of games, the Super Falcons have scored 15 goals and conceded 11 recording 6 wins and 2 losses.
From a neutral perspective, you will have to favour Belgium to run away with this one but if they underestimate the Super Falcons, they do so at their own peril.
Tomorrow’s match is a huge test of the credentials of Dennerby and his ladies. Star player Chikwelu was quoted before the tournament saying: “We are going for the Cyprus Cup to participate and compete very well with other countries.
I want to assure our fans and Nigerians that we are not just going there to make up numbers but we are going there to make a huge difference. We are happy as a team and as individuals that we are going for the Cyprus Cup tournament for the first time.
It’s a good preparation for us ahead of the World Cup. I want to say a big thank you to NFF for ensuring that we have good preparation ahead of the World Cup.” End of quote.
Yes, kudos to the NFF for adequately preparing our ladies for the tasks ahead.