Michelle Alozie Focused on Qualifying Falcons for AWCON, World Cup

Duro Ikhazuagbewith agency report

Nigeria and Houston Dash in the America’s National Women’s Soccer League forward, Michelle Alozie, 24, has remained focused on helping Super Falcons qualifying for the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament scheduled to hold next February in Morocco.

Alozie was one of the players Coach Randy Waldrum recently camped in Abuja for a training camp ahead of the all important final hurdle with Côte d’Ivoire’s Elephant Ladies.

“It was really good to get a full nine days with everyone to prepare for the upcoming games,” began Alozie in an interview with BBC Africa Sports yesterday.

She admitted a lot of take away from the training session in Abuja.

“We had a lot of positives, and it was good to see some new faces from the domestic players in Nigeria. We need to work more together, to get more acclimated to one another, and that is what these camps are for.

“We are continuing to build for these qualifiers.”

Super Falcons in October narrowly defeated Ghana’s Black Queens 2-1 on aggregate to reach this final qualifying clash with the Ivorians.

A win for Falcons at the AWCON in Morocco next year will be the fourth time in a row and the 10th title for Nigeria.

Ticket as one of Africa’s representatives for the 2023 Women’s World Cup will also be decided in Morocco in July, with the semi-finalists all booking spots in Australia and New Zealand joint hosting of the women’s Mundial.

“We know this is a revenge game so we are going to put everything in it,” Alozie said, referring to the fact Côte d’Ivoire knocked Nigeria out of the qualifiers for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

“We need to win it. We want to go to AWCON and we want to go to the World Cup so we know what is at stake,” she stressed with seriousness.

At the Summer Series tournament in USA last June, Alozie made her full Nigeria debut against Jamaica, fulfilling a “childhood dream”.

However, in a bizarre twist of fate three months later, Alozie got on the scorer’s sheet against Nigeria at the Aisha Buhari Tournament in Lagos with an own goal in Falcons clash with South Africa’s Banyana Banyana.