By Eniola Olatunji, reporting for Patmos Media Line
THE WORLD football confraternity awaits the qualification of Nigeria’s Falconets (U20) women football team this Saturday at the Remo Stadium, Ikenne in Ogun State as Nigeria clashes with their counterparts, The Scorchers of Malawi in the final hurdle to the World women’s U20 Cup finals in Poland.
Nigeria’s Falconets have appeared a record eleven times in the African final phase and moved forward the eleven times to the world cup finals in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2022 and 2024.
For the Poland race, Nigeria rounded up Rwanda 5-0 on aggregate winning 1st leg 1-0 in Rwanda and raided them 4-0 in the 2nd leg. That was at the 2nd round of the African qualifier.
At the 3rd round, Nigeria sent Senegal gasping for breathe 3-1 on aggregate with a 1-0 victory at Ikenne in the 1st leg and a stunning 2-1 victory in the 2nd leg in Dakar.
Now, Nigeria faces the Scorchers of Malawi who will try to burn them out of the Poland race on Saturday in the 1st leg at Ikenne and 2nd leg at Blantyre for the 2nd leg on 9th May. The Malawian Babes are already in Ikenne plotting their game plans against the Falconets.
A look at the Nigerian performances shows two girls P. Oscar who scored two goals against RWANDA in the 2nd legs and L. Kindness who was absolutely unkind to Senegal scoring the only goal in the 1st game and sending the Senegalese back to the boardroom to adjust for next edition with the winner.
The observation is that Nigeria has so many scorers who can fire from any angle in the pack of Falconets as seen in the 8-1 goals obtained in these final rounds.
Their practice matches have been avalanche of goals gifting teams with 9-0 in their last match; another collected 7 goals; another 5 and one tried conceding only 2 goals. We await Saturday when Malawi and Nigeria will file out against themselves and what the scoreboard will read after 90 minutes of play.
Nigeria were runners up at two world cup finals in 2010 and 2014. Nigeria lost to hosts Germany in 2010 and same German team in 2014. In 2010 Nigeria lost 0-2 to Germany and in 2014 Nigeria lost by a lone goal.
The year 2014 was nostalgic when Agba Baller, Asisat Oshoala was top scorer with 7 goals and also emerged Best Player in that tournament.
Nigeria had caged the Tigress of North Korea 6-2 in the 1st Semifinal at Mincton, Canada that 2014 before 4,871 fans where Oshoala wrecked the Tigress scoring four goals in that single match in the 24th, 60th, 68th and 85th minutes.
Can this bunch of Falconets make an encore starting with Malawi on Saturday? The drums have been shifted to Ikenne and Patmos Media learnt the Billionaire owner of Remo Stars, Otunba Osiname who turned 60 years this week had arranged that special bottles of wine be popped up from the Dressing room of the Falconets after the match. The girls are being motivated to make the 2nd leg in Blantyre a mere formality match.
The world women’s football cup finals will run among 24 nations from 5th to 27th September 2026 in Popand. The defending champions, North Korea is set for a superlative performance.
#FAM #COSAFA #NFF
#WAFU #CAF #FIFA
#FIFAU20WWC
—
Do you have a news tip for JKNewsMedia.com? Please copy and email us at jkmediapress@gmail.com.
