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By Johnny Edward.
The Super Falcons will be looking to redeem themselves when they face Colombia on Saturday (today) at the invitational Revolution Cup in Leon, Mexico.
Falcons suffered a sixth straight defeat under American coach Randy Waldrum in their opening fixture of the tourney last Wednesday.
Mexican Kiana Palacios was the heroine of the clash as she grabbed the match winner in the 85th minute for the only goal of the game.
The last time Super Falcons won a game was against Cameron at the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. They crashed out of that tournament at the semi final stage.
Speaking ahead of the game, Waldrum who will be without Asisat Oshoala for the encounter believes his side will learn from the defeat, fans of the team have expressed their doubts following the team’s display in recent games.
Oshoala is currently the top scorer in the Spanish women’s league with 17 goals from 18 games for Barcelona Femení side this season.
Uzoanya Okechukwu tweeted, “I’m not surprised with you guys performance against Mexico with Randy (Waldrum). As usual with Randy we aren’t going anywhere.”
EL Khalifa also added, “You wonder what they are training for. The Falcons can barely keep control of the ball within their half for as short as five minutes within the flow of play.
“The coach here is just as under par in performance as the team, keeps faith in old war horses. They are simply the worse team ever.”
@ChiemekaEmee also blames the Falcons poor form to their training.
“Every time I see clips of Falcons training, I always see recovery sessions and jogs, but very little ball-work. How can you play well when there’s no emphasis on ball control, retention, situational training, and good passing? And we wonder why the team is messing up.”
The Falcons are paired in Group B alongside Olympic champions Canada, co-hosts Australia and the Republic of Ireland and face the tough task of making it out of the group phase.
However, Waldrum is confident his team can go far in the global tournament.
“The first target for us at the World Cup is to advance out of the group stage,” Waldrum told thenff.com.
“Everyone wants to get to the knockout stage but obviously in order to achieve that, you have to advance out of the group, and now, our focus is principally on doing that.”
The Falcons will be domiciled in Brisbane, where they will play two of their three matches, with the other game in another Australian city, Melbourne.
Nigeria is in the elite group of only seven countries that have never failed to qualify for the Women’s World Cup since the competition was launched in China 32 years ago.