Rinsola Babajide has assured that the Super Falcons will bounce back following their disappointing campaign at the 2026 WAFCON and failure to qualify for the women’s World Cup.
Babajide stated this in a post on her official X handle.
“Heartbroken to say the least. 💔🥺
“It really hurts to miss out on a World Cup spot but grateful for the opportunity to represent my country at yet another WAFCON, unfortunately it didn’t go the way we’d of liked it to have gone.
“We might be down right now but we’ll definitely bounce back, the only way we know how to, the Naija way! 🇳🇬🦅
“Time to reset, reflect & work ahead towards the Olympic qualifiers.
Also Read: ‘We’re Not Invincible’ — Ajibade Reflects On Super Falcons’ WAFCON 2026 Struggles
“Thank you to everyone who supported us both in the stands and from home through it all.
“The journey has been real. 🙏🏾.”
The Super Falcons had their worst outing at the WAFCON after losing to Cameroon 1-0 in the quarterfinals, thereby missing out on automatic qualification to the World Cup in Brazil.
However, the team had another opportunity in the play-in against South Africa but lost 2-1 and will now miss out for the first time since making their debut at the maiden tournament in 1991 in China.
4 Comments
Olympics qualifiers with comoros is in 6 weeks time.
Comoros beat sudan 30 nil in round 1 in June.
Madugu and his falcons couldn’t beat debutants Malawi, a feat unheard of in falcons 35 years WAFCON history.
I will rather hug a viper than believe falcons with Madugu will defeat comoros in early October knowing that Morocco is likely opposition in round 3.
Falcons need a new coach now.
In their own interest.
Not that let-us-hope-another-distraction-comes-fast fact finding committee by NFF on falcons disastrous outing ever.
Falcons right now are in soup because Gusau has not their interest at heart.
How can a local coach dislike foreign born players that covered his inadequacies in the last WAFCON triumph and expect harmony in the dressing room?
When a football club falters in their barest minimum ambition, the coach takes the fall.
The older the better coach will wipe out our Olympic dream if he remains after years of no show before Randy brought it back
I am very sure you lots will definitely bounce back. I still believe you are the African best women football team, and that hard luck and complacency robbed you of retaining the title you won only last year, 2025. Even in the 2 knockout matches you lost in the 2026 tournament, you outplayed both the Cameroonians and South African women- but for hard luck and fantastic goal keeping by their goalkeepers against are now Sieving Basket Nnadozie that became a shadow of herself and gifting goals to opposition teams.
Going forward:
The records show that Justine Madugu was a better Coach than former US-born Coach Waldrum. The American was in charge of Super Falcons for 4 years from 2020 to 2024 and never won Walfcon, didn’t even get a Bronze medal in the 2022 WAFCON with all his “set up and team building,” lies spewed by indigenous coach haters, but Madugu won, not Bronze, but the trophy (Gold medal) within a year of taking over from September 2024 to July 2025 when he won all the so-called “better white Coaches,” including Morocco women team Coached by a former Spanish Women World Cup winner, Jorge Vilda in last year’s WAFCON finals.
A Madugu- who was 7 months ago African women best Coach winner, and Ballon d’or nominated World best woman coach for 2025 can’t suddenly become a “bad Coach,” just because her ill-prepared SF players and bad luck made him lose-with very narrow margins to Cameroon and South Africa, in matches the Super Falcons outplayed them.
Inferiority complex NFF always give more logistic and financial support to foreign coaches at all levels than to indigenous Nigerian coaches, and that lack of support accounted for Super Falcons playing only 2 friendly matches, against Senegal and Cameroonian ladies, in very poor preparations for the 2026 Wafcon tournament. That plus an aging SF team who became too complacent caused the temporary dip in performance of the Super Falcon in the 2026 Wafcon. Football teams do suffer temporary dip in forms and cannot win every match in perpetuity- not even Guardiola’s Manchester city or Luiz Enrique’s PSG win every match, as they do lose matches every now and then, and Madugu cannot be an exception.
Even if NFF decides to sack Mdugu as SF Coach, they should by all means hire a decent indigenous Nigerian coaches as his replacement, not so called white coache mercenaries with limited knowledge of the culture, nuances and physical nature of African football, at all levels, male and female.
Indeed the history of World Cup, Afcon and Wafcon winners showed that more than 90% local indigenous coaches have won the titles than foreign recruited Coaches: Brazil has won the WORLD Cup 5 times (highest in the world) with Brazilian native Coaches. Their attempt this year (2026 Fifa World Cup) to get a foreign European coach, Ancelloti ended in disaster, as Brazil was knocked out in the round of 16- probably the 1st time Brazil had not got to the Qtr final stage of a World Cup. Germany and Italy have both won the World Cup 4 times each, and in all those winnings were coached by the native local coaches.
Here in Africa, Egypt has won the Afcon a record 7 times and in all those occasions, local Egyptian coaches did the magic; Senegal men won it twice and on both occasions with indigenous Senegalese coaches. Even 2023 Afcon host, Ivory Coast, went to the tournament with “Oyibo coach” who was disgraced in the group matches loses against Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, and was rightly sacked before luck smiled on Ivory Coast to qualify for KO round as worst 3rd placed qualifier, and an Ivorian rooky coach, did the magic of winning the trophy, beating everyone in front of them, including same Nigerian team that beat the Oyibo coached-team in the final.
The Wafcon titles are even more revealing: Nigeria has won it 10 times and I doubt if any foreign or white-coach, including Waldrum, won a single one of them. South Africa Banyana won the title only once in 2022, and it was a local coach that won it for them. All the 4 automatic World Cup qualified teams, except Morocco (coached by Spanish, Jorge Vilda) are coached by indigenous, native land coaches. A testament to the unassailable pedigree of African coaches in this year’s WAFCON is the fact that the two finalists for tomorrow’s final, Cameroon and Malawi, are coached by native-land coaches- Valentine Nguele for Cameroon lionesses and Lovemore Fazili for Malawi Scorchers. Like we say in local parlance: You can never know Ojo’s mother than Ojo does!”
“Even if NFF decides to sack Mdugu as SF Coach, they should by all means hire a decent indigenous Nigerian coaches as his replacement,….”
I thought you had a lineup of decent local coaches oh lol.
Waldrum may not have won WAFCON “in four years” WHEN HE ATTENDED ONLY ONE, but he:
1) Didn’t lose to any WAFCON debutants maintaining a long tradition of always conquering minnows
2) Didn’t score 10 goals only to concede 8 in his only WAFCON when 4 years should have given him at most 3 appearances
3) Didn’t need 5 penalties to boost 10 goals scored in a forgettable WAFCON and still not do the barest minimum: qualify for the world cup
4) Didn’t fail to qualify for the semis since previous local coaches could achieve that, so maintained the trajectory.
5) Didn’t need playoff to reach any world cup or even fail with that too
6) Didn’t carry foreign based players to lose to nations that carried mostly home based players in very obscure leagues too
7) Never used his list to call up 26 players only to play Alozie, arguably the best RB on the continent repeatedly in the LB without rest in 5 matches;
And Oladipo who won the best player in Italy in unfamiliar RB repeatedly
And he called up 26 players
8) Didn’t need to know that Ohale-Demehin partnership which clearly embarrassed Madugu twice against Malawi and Cameroon who even beat us with several under 22 players, should have not started in the most important match and second chance of the WAFCON.
9) Didn’t need to relegate 3 local teams to become falcons coach
10) Didn’t need to say “the older the better” in other to hide his incompetence that he doesn’t know how to discover and integrate players into our best female soccer brand.
11) Didn’t need to lose thrice to fellow “local coaches” with unknown player names in their setups with supposed matured squad of 3 years post-2023 world cup experiences that should have any team grow in more leaps and bounds
12) Most importantly,
Didn’t need to be in super falcons since 2012 and pretend to LEARN NOTHING from head coaches:
*Kadiri Ikhana
*Edwin Okon
*Florence Omagbemi
*Thomas Dennerby
*Waldrum
Just to mess up by not winning ordinary quarterfinal with same team he deludes himself to win WAFCON only a year ago as if he broke new ground by doing so.
Pure rubbish.
Read Ellis Desiree post match analysis of that playoff match again.
In simple English, she said Kgatlana should drop deep, not strike since our FULLBACKS will be in mismatched or unfamiliar roles and it worked WITH THE WORST RSA team in recent WAFCON memory.
Nonsense.
Again, name any astute local coach who has won laurels to carry falcons against comoros in 6 weeks time.
You lie too much, you know! You pulled out AI junk misleading information that both Malawi and Cameroon coaches are not CAF licensed coach and therefore were not in the dugout out in their Wafcon groups and KO matches as they get to 2026 finals tomorrow and more likely to take the trophy from DEFENDING CHAMPIONS, Madugu’s tutored Super Falcons of Nigeria? I wonder if you watched any of their matches and too blind by your negativity to see that they, as head coach where in their dugout all through.
Now get this into your “bitterness and inferiority complex” head. Coach Valentine Nguele, the lady coach of Cameroon lionesses is a. CAF Licensed Grade A coach- the highest ever in the grading of coaches, and Lovemore Fazili, the Malawian ladies coach is a CAF B Licensed coach and they both were rightly in the dugout- even Mr Fazili Assistant Malawi women’s coach, Mr Chombo is a Malawian- not your white mercenaries coach- and you can see that they have both beaten your white coaches- Cameroon’s Nguele knocking out a Moroccan team, after Madugu has done so in 2025, right under his nose in his own backyard in Rabat(inspite of the home advantages of a vociferous and intimidating fans).
Stop lying Mr Bitterness and haters of Madugu: Madugu’s wards were knocked out in the 2026 Wafcon by Cameroon by a lucky lone goal gifted to them by the overweight chiamaka Nnadozie in SF goal; and that feat was achieved by a miracle working Lionesses goal keeper- very determined and inspired to make 9 incredible saves and won woman of the match award in that encounter. The match against South Africa is not a Wafcon match- but fifa world cup qualifier- but even so SA won, even when SF also outplayed them because of their inspired Goal keeper, Swart- who also won the Woman of the Match award- compared to the dosing Nnadozie in SF goal in that WWC qualifier playoff.
So Madugu’s team did not concede 8 goals as you lied above but 6 (3+2+1=6) Goals, but also scored 9 goals in the 2026 Wafcon- still better than Wadrum’s 2022 SF in goal scored and goal difference- your white demi-god is the worst SF foreign coach ever, as he could not achieve a podium finish (not a Bronze medal, never mind tea cup) in any Wafcon- Even Thomas Dannerby, the Swedish coach won something in 2018- so your demigod has the worst record and can never be compared to Madugu who won the 10th title (Mission 10 achiever) in 2025.
Forget about Desiree Ellis, the South African coach gloating: Madugu beat the shit out of her only a year ago in the last Wafcon Semi final on his way to achieving the indisputable Mission X. So she can’t claim any superiority over Justin Madugu.
And if you are talking of records- then Madugu is light years ahead of “Oyibo god” Waldrum who never won African Women Coach of the year in 4 years of handling SF, whilst Madugu won the Coach of the Wafcon tournament award as well as best woman coach of the year 2025.
And if you want more record, this will make you grin with more envy and bitterness and probably make you “hug the transformer” faster: Madugu is the only African coach (male or female team) in history to be nominated for 2025 Ballon d’or award.
I will not dignify you with a response to all the other gibberish you posted above, probably obtained from clueless and embittered misinformed AI junkies, that you love their fake, false and misleading entries.