Aug 18, 2015 Still recovering from a premature elimination at the recently concluded women’s World Cup in Canada, the Nigeria’s Super Falcons are re-evaluating their team chemistry.
The Super Falcons have been Africa’s commanding team in women’s football and were finally hoping to step up and join the list of top contenders at the world cup. However the team was edged out of the tournament by the United States ; the team that went on to win the Women’s World Cup for the third time with a crushing 5-2 victory over Japan.
The Falcon’s Captain, Evelyn Nwabuoku, said she was disappointed with the team’s performance at the World Cup, but expressed optimism ahead of next year Olympic Games in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil.
“As players we didn’t expect to go out that way at the World Cup, we had so many plans before we went for the World Cup, we went there with high hopes but our hopes were just dashed but then we resolved amongst ourselves that because we did not qualify for the last Olympics and this is another opportunity for us to show the world what we have,”
As a result of the team’s poor outing, coach Edwin Okon was given his matching orders with an interim coach appointed to take over for the Olympic qualifiers.
Despite an early exit from the World Cup and previous poor showings at international competitions, the team’s captain went on to assert that female football in Nigeria is taking giant strides.
“It has to do with proper planning, the group, the people we played in the World Cup, if you check the standings we are not of the same caliber, they prepared so well. Fine we did our best but our best was not good enough but I think that’s a very good one for us. We’ve learnt and I think female football in Nigeria has improved a lot,” added Nwabuoku.
Super Falcons striker, Asisat Oshoala was voted the BBC Women’s footballer of the yearv2015 in May which many see as a sign of better things to come.
Acting coach, Christopher Danjuma has moved to praise the enormous potentials of the team.
“One thing I want us to check is history, where have we come from, from the last major competitions we have gone to and how is our performance? I know position or where we get to in a competition matters but one thing we fail to look at is the technical and the tactical input of a team and how far they have fared from the last where they are coming from. It shows you that this is a team that has a great prospect of equaling anybody in the world,” he said.