The Super Falcons of Nigeria are in a difficult situation in ensuring qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup following their surprising opening match defeat to minnows, Malawi, at the African Women’s Cup of Nations, AWCON, going on in Morocco.
Nigeria succumbed to a 3-2 defeat to Malawi, after being two goals down in the second half and are now in third position in their Group C, which has Zambia as table toppers after their 6-0 pummelling of Egypt, Malawi in second place.
With the Confederation of African Football, CAF, stating that only the four semi-finalists from the competition would automatically qualify for the World Cup, as well as two others joining from the quarter final after winning in a play-off round, to make it six teams from the continent at the global competition, the defending champions have a mountain to climb as they are next to be challenged by Zambia of the powerhouse teams in the competition in a must win game, and would most definitely need to beat the north Africans too, to stand a realistic chance of getting to the knock-out rounds of AWCON and fight for their eligibility for the mundial event.
With Zambia beating Egypt 6-0 and the Super Falcons’ loss to Malawi, the west Africans would not only need to win against the former but also score sufficient goals, to bolster their qualification chances, or find themselves thrown out at the first round, for the first time in the history of the tournament.
”We may have lost this one, but please don’t leave us alone,” Oshoola told the country’s supporters immediately after the cringeworthy defeat.
”The only thing I can say right now is that we need their support, the World Cup ticket is at stake,” she continued, and added, ”This is the time we really need everyone to support the team.
”’We already know the Super Eagles didn’t qualify, so we understand what is at stake and how Nigerians feel about this. But for the next match, we are going to put in more effort and try to do better,”
The head coach Justin Madugu said, ”We’ve identified some of our mistakes and will analyse them properly before our next match against Zambia.
”I want to assure Nigerians that we will overcome this setback, It happened to us in 2018, and we still went on to win the tournament,” Madudu added.
On what happened during the game, he said, ”People are entitled to their opinions. I know they wont be reacting the way if Nigeria had won. We generally had a bad day.”
The loss could be positive in disguise as it would be of no suprise to see the Green White Green country players getting the much needed wins to qualify for the knock-out stages and finish as champions as they are know for, after 10 title wins, the most by any other side.
The defeat could be an eye opener for Rashidat Ajibade, Esther Okorokwo, Chiamaka Nnadozie, the star-turn-bystander, Asisat Oshoola, to mention few, to see the task as enormous but not insurmountable.