New Telegraph

Falcons need fresh, younger legs for World Cup

L ast week, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) released the list for the Revelation Cup tournament to be staged in Leon, Mexico City, and we observed that the core of Super Falcons players who failed to sparkle at the Africa Women Nations Cup last year still made the fold. Hosts Mexico, Nigeria, Costa Rica and Colombia are the participating teams at the tournament in the State of Guanajuato, with matches between February 15 and 21, and with the objective of preparing the contestants for the 9th FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in Australia and New Zealand this summer.

We must say that it was indeed a surprise that at least eight of the players who made the country proud at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica were not picked. At the tournament the team defeated France and Germany. Only one player from Rivers Angels made the cut from the domestic league that has been vibrant in the past two years. We believe the NFF has not shown enough concern about the declining fortunes of the Falcons as there appears to be no clear effort at overhauling the national women’s team. We also challenge the role of the technical department of the federation headed by Austin Eguavoen.

Falcons Coach Randy Waldrum is an employee of the NFF and even if the federation will not pick players for him, the NFF can advise and give him a direction. Nigerians are tired of seeing some of the players who have played for over 15 years in the women’s national team. It is sad that lessons were not learnt with the poor results posted by the senior national football teams in 2022. While the Super Eagles even failed to pick a World Cup ticket, another African country, Morocco, created history to become the first team on the continent to play in the semi-final of the Copa Mundial in Qatar.

Even though the Moroccans eventually lost the bronze medal match, many football lovers in the country would have been happy to see the Super Eagles achieve such an amazing feat based on the enormous talents God has blessed Nigeria with. The rest, they say, is history and in the past few weeks many keen analysts of the game have advised the NFF to start preparations for the next World Cup now. No one seems to be listening to this until the qualifiers come and it will be business as usual. We also recall that the Super Falcons fell like a pack of cards at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.

It was indeed the first time that the country failed to win any shade of medal at the continental competition. The nine-time champions lost three matches in just one tournament. South Africa defeated Nigeria in the group stage only for the country to also lose on penalties 5-4 to hosts Morocco. In the Third Place match, the Falcons again crumbled 1-0 to Zambia to finish fourth in the competition. It has never been that bad for the former champions of Africa. The only good thing was the qualification ticket earned for the FIFA World Cup taking place later in this year. Interestingly, the South African team that defeated Nigeria was composed of young players just as the Moroccans also paraded agile and youthful players.

Falcons, with their wealth of experience and record on the continent, were unable to match the firepower of the younger, hungrier ladies who took them on at will and also showed so much promise to be better in the future. Nigeria paraded close to 10 players who were above 30 in Morocco. The expected blend of young and old was not there as we were made to believe, rather the team lacked direction, mobility and the hunger to get results. After the competition, it was generally expected that the entire team would be overhauled just as the position of Waldrum as head coach would be evaluated.

Today, nothing has changed as Waldrum not only retained his position, but he has also decided to stick with the same set of players that failed woefully in Morocco. We make bold to say that other countries on the continent have overtaken Nigeria. The Banyana Banyana defeated Nigeria in a tournament in Lagos and also at the AWCON tournament and so it is catch-up time for the Falcons.

Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Zambia and even Senegal are coming up strong and the response from Nigeria must be very robust for the country to retain her place of pride on the continent and beyond. We charge the NFF to work with the technical department and the Falcons coach to decide the way forward for the Falcons as the country prepares for the FIFA World Cup slated for Australia later in the year. There must be a deliberate effort to eject fresh, younger legs into the Super Falcons team. The team is currently shaky and it has to be overhauled if the country is to retain her place as all-time best on the continent.

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