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By Ebenezer Bajela.
Head coach of the Super Falcons, Randy Waldrum, has revealed that the primary objective at the forthcoming 2023 Women’s World Cup is to advance from the group stage of the competition.
The American set the tone for the World Cup, scheduled to hold in Australia and New Zealand in the summer, in a press statement from the Nigeria Football Federation.
The Falcons were disappointing at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco last year as they failed to defend the title they won in Cameroon.
It was also the first time the team failed to make the podium for the first time in many years after losing to Zambia in the third-place match to finish fourth, thus picking the last automatic World Cup ticket.
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.