General Secretary of Nigeria Football Federation, Dr. Sanusi Mohammed has expressed the optimism that Nigeria’s senior national women football team, the Super Falcons, will eliminate their Ivory Coast counterparts in the final qualifying match for the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, Completesports.com reports.
Sanusi Mohammed told Completesports.com on Tuesday that the federation will do everything humanly possible and within the laws of the game to ensure that the Super Falcons secure a berth at the WAFCON in Morocco next year
“We are going to work seriously to make sure that we don’t have a repeat of what happened the last time we met when they eleminated Nigeria from the Tokyo Olympic games. We are going to work very hard to ensure that we eliminate Ivory Coast from WAFCOBN,” SSanusi stated.
“We have taken note of some lapses in the Super Falcons team that defeated their Ghanaian counterparts 2-1 over two legs and we shall try to correct them before we play the Ivory Coast women team.
“The team will be rejigged for greater efficiency and better results. We shall carry out a post mortem examination of the Ghana matches with a view to making changes in the team’s set up. It might affect technical, players and backroom staff. We just have to strengthen the team”
He added: “When the Super Falcons regroup next year, the team will camp for a longer period in preparing for the clash against Ivory Coast. Our coach Randy Waldrum is expected to draw a program that will help both the home and foreign based players gel well before the game,” NFF Chief Scribe stated.
The Super Falcons are expected to play the Lady Elephants of Ivory Coast in the final qualifying matches of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in February 2022.
By Richard Jideaka, Abuja
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COMMENTS
with barely three months to this crucial women’s qualifier match with Ivory Coast, the NFF rather than rolling out an action plan for the team now, is talking about when they regroup next year. Falcons had 24 to 48 hours preparation, before playing Ghana, whose local players had been in camp for over a month prior and came to the Aisha buhari cup from their pram pram camp and back to the same camp before playing the falcons. We rode our luck to qualify, especially in the reverse game here in Accra. Ivory Coast is also dominated by home based players and already plan to open camp in January, in preparation to play Falcons, with their few foreign based players joining 10 days to the game. If we mean to eliminate them we must prepare better than we did against Ghana, especially on the teams fitness levels, tactical play and team work in attack. The game here in Ghana showed up some falcon players as struggling with fitness and the weather. I rather not worry about the coaching, as it is too late in the day to adjust that. With the undoubted talent Nigeria has in Women Football, it is within our capacity to qualify, if we work hard, invite the best local legs and blend them with foreign based players, actually playing. we play Ivory Coast at home first and crucial that we don’t concede any goals. We must try to score even once or twice to help us in the return leg that will be steeped with pressure and possibly politics. It does seem that CAF has an agenda to shift the power base of football in Africa and no better way to do it than have proven champions, Nigeria, not qualify. NFF Shine your eye!!!
Very enjoyable piece!
“With the undoubted talent Nigeria has in Women Football, it is within our capacity to qualify, if we work hard, invite the best local legs and blend them with foreign based players.”
You have said it all, thank you sir.
The psychological impact if all those years when the Super Falcons smashed the African opposition easily is still affecting Nigeria. Now other teams hsve caught up with us.
OPEN LETTER TO NFF
Dear NFF, I am particularly happy with your resolve to rejig the Super Falcons for the uphill task before them against Ivory Coast. Please there is one major thing that must be corrected before the encounter, which is, getting young, energetic, and technically sound fullbacks. The present left full-back recovery rate is slow and she is absent-minded sometimes.Onome is aging but she is alert, technical, and focused. We need players like her as fullbacks. Where is Ngozi Ebere? If need be, the coach can covert some of those players on the bench who are hungry for success to defenders or as the need arises. Ashleigh Plumptre would have been the solution, either as a midfielder or left-back, why is she not in the team?
It is very glaring, seeing what happened in Ghana on Sunday that the win at all cost still rules Africa. Imagine how the referee allowed the play to continue despite the fact that one of Falcon’s defenders was down which in a way distracted Onome from marking out the goal scorer. What if the collision was life-threatening?
Now, if the NFF has decided to wake up from their slumber, it is cheering news, hoping that their motives or intentions are genuine.