PARIS 2024: Super Falcons Set to Banish Memories of Beijing in Bordeaux 

 *NIGERIA V BRAZIL 

Duro Ikhazuagbe 

There couldn’t have been a better setting for Nigeria’s Super Falcons to return to the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament than facing Brazil, the same team they played 16 years ago at the Beijing 2008 edition. 

This evening in Bordeaux, Nigeria and Brazil will lock horns in what promises to be a mouthwatering affair, given the flair both teams bring to the table.

Three editions of the Olympiad have rolled by with the nine-time African champions conspicuously absent. But all that is history now. The Super Falcons have bounced back and are set to do better than their previous outings at the tournament. 

Unlike their last outing 16 years ago when the Falcons lost 1-3 to the Canarinhas in front of 51,112 spectators at the impressive Workers’ Stadium in Beijing, China and lost the chance to progress to the quarter-finals, the Nigerian ladies have grown in leaps and bounds. 

Their outing at last summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals Down Under, is a testament to what they are capable of offering now. Any team that under-rates the nine-time African champions could end up with a black eye and a bloody nose.

However, women’s football aficionados worldwide consider that this evening’s encounter at the 42,000-capacity Stade Matmut Atlantique in southern France will be much more competitive and entertaining.

Nigeria’s ensemble is currently brimming with highly gifted, talented and enterprising professionals who continue to dazzle with their clubs in Europe and the Americas, and they suffer no anxieties or palpitations when they take the pitch against the very best squads from anywhere, as was seen in Australia 12 months ago.

Down Under, the girls coached by American Randy Waldrum successfully checkmated Olympic champions Canada, defeated exciting hosts Australia and drew with an ambitious Republic of Ireland side in Brisbane to reach the Round of 16. There, they punched England severally but could not get that important goal, and eventually lost after a penalty shootout following scoreless regulation and extra time.

Only reserve goalkeeper Tochukwu Oluehi remains part of the Falcons’ squad from that 2008 experience in China, but goalkeeper Ann Chiejine, assistant coach with the team in France, was part of a memorable encounter with the Brazilians at the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in the USA in 1999.

Nigeria roared back from 0-3 down at half time to tie the encounter 3-3, but lost via the ‘golden goal’ at the Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in Maryland.

On Thursday, there will be no punches pulled by either side, with the focus on the three points as the race begins for slots in the quarter-finals.

Coach Waldrum can afford to be confident, with world-class goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie, defence stalwarts Osinachi Ohale, Michelle Alozie Oluwatosin Demehin and Chidinma Okeke, midfielders Rasheedat Ajibade, Christy Ucheibe, Deborah Abiodun and Toni Payne, and forwards Chinwendu Ihezuo and Uchenna Kanu.

The Super Falcons flew past their counterparts from Ethiopia, Cameroon and South Africa to reach the final tournament, and no doubt, possess the steel and flair to go all the way in France.