Falconets have a point to prove against China
By Kunle Solaja
NIGERIA'S age-grade female football team, Falconets hope to improve on their poor performance two years ago in Canada as the FIFA Under-19 Women Championship opens this morning (Nigerian time) in Thailand.
The Nigerian side which drew just a game and lost two at the last edition face China's "Steel Rosebuds" in a Group B game in Chiang Mai's 700th Anniversary Stadium. Kickoff time is 11a.m. Nigerian time. It is the first ever clash of the two teams at that level, even though China and Nigeria had met five times at the senior women's level. Nigeria won two and China were victorious three times.
Owing to unimpressive results outside the continent, even FIFA website derogatively described the Nigerian team "Africa's paper champions" to connote that much is not expected from the Falconets.
Rather, attention is focused more on the debutants, the Chinese who had been feeling confident ahead this morning's match with Nigeria. Unlike the Falconets, China's Steel Rosebuds missed out at the inaugural tournament two years ago in Canada.
Both Nigeria and China hope to have a good opener ahead of tough clashes with Brazil and Italy which FIFA rated as the group's favourites.
China had a disappointing outing at the Women World Cup last year in US and the slide was unabated at the Athens Olympics where Nigeria's Super Falcons had a fair outing. But with the next editions of both competition " the Women World Cup and Beijing 2008 Olympics" due to hold in China, the pressure is more on the Asians to prove they are ready for the international engagements.
When the draws were made ahead of today's match, China's head coach, Wang Haiming, even though looking ahead to a tougher game with Brazil, admitted that "the opening game with Nigeria will be difficult, as we know very little about them.
"I watched Italy play in Finland this August and I think they are beatable. The last group match with Brazil will be the stiffest test by far. With Rosana, Cristiane and Marta joining up with the team, Brazil have - to my mind - the most powerful players in the competition."
FIFA in its analyses ahead of today's game seemed to put its bet on China. Describing the team as "paper champion", FIFA website commented on Falconets: "Though they came into the finals as nominal champions of Africa... they needed to pass a few more tests to reach Thailand, including an edgy, contentious final with South Africa, Nigeria's qualifying process was still a relatively easy affair".
The Falconets are said to have been outplayed by the South Africans in the return leg match at Abeokuta.
It is, however, expected that the infusion of five Super Falcon players into the squad has added the necessary punch to the team which is expected to put their natural physical built to bear on the smaller-framed Asians.
Yet this might also be a disadvantage depending on the way the referee of the game chooses to interpret the natural strength of the Africans.
The girls drafted from the Super Falcons include Cynthia Uwak, Sabi Akudo, Faith Ikidi and goalkeeper Ogechi Oyinnanya.
They add to four others who had featured in the inaugural championship in Canada two years ago. The quartet are Adeola Aminu, Ayisat Yusuf, Lilian Cole and Akudo Uwagwu.
