Super Falcons riding new-found confidence

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This article was published 11/06/2015 (4082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Minutes before the ball dropped on their World Cup opener against Sweden, the Nigerian women’s soccer team came together for a song and for one last dance.

They will do it again today, before they face Australia in the day’s first match. The dance is a Nigerian tradition, head coach Edwin Okon said Thursday, an outpouring of pure faith in a nation where faith is often central. Muslim or Christian, it doesn’t matter, every players raises their voice in praise together.

“That gives us the spirit,” striker Francisca Ordega said at their pre-match press conference. “We serve the same God. When you sing and dance, you feel the passion of God… I don’t even know how to express it, but that gives us joy.”

On Monday, that joy flowed all over the pitch. It showed when Ordega scored the goal that clinched an upstart 3-3 tie against the fifth-ranked Swedes. It was a bright showing for the 33rd-ranked Nigerian team, especially considering few expected them to survive one of the toughest groups in the first round.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Nigeria is in the group of death,’ ” Ordega said. “For me, it’s not a group of death. It’s a group of survival.”

This newfound confidence speaks volumes, about the evolution of the Super Falcons. In six previous tries at the Women’s World Cup, they passed the group stage only once, a quarter-final appearance in 1999. Now, they have a roaring young roster loaded with young talent, and a newfound confidence to match.

“We always agreed on one thing, that this time around is going to be a different thing altogether,” Ortega said. “The calibre of players we have, and everyone is ready to make it different. We want to give our country another impression, and not just our country but the whole world. We can do it.”

Heading into tonight’s match, Australia head coach Alen Stajcic knows his side will have to be wary. Stajcic thought Nigeria could have won on Monday, and that fact left him thinking the “group of death” could be even tougher than most observers originally predicted.

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“I’ve seen this (Nigerian) team evolve over two to three years, probably going back to the 2010 youth World Cup,” he said. “Certainly there are no surprises on the talent of the team. There are no surprises. They played as I expected they would, really electric, powerful upfront.”

The Matildas dropped their first tilt of the tournament on Monday afternoon, a 3-1 loss to the juggernaut U.S. squad. But the Australians carried the play for much of the early parts of the match, and Stajcic was pleased with what he saw in the match. The difference, he mused, was the U.S. had some outstanding plays from their big-name players. But in a different way than Nigeria, perhaps, the Matildas too have faith.

“There’s a lot of belief on this team, and I think we showed that,” Stajcic said. “Some of you didn’t believe me that we could match America, or even outplay America… but I thought we did well. I thought we played extremely well, and on another given day you’d probably win that game. I thought it was moments of magic that won that game for America, rather than outstanding 90 minutes from either team.

“They (the Americans) deserved their victory, but from a team context and a performance context, we get a lot of belief.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.