1st April, 2014
Flamingoes head coach, Bala Nkiyu has said his side achieved a milestone at the 2014 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica despite bowing out in the quarterfinals of the competition to Spain.
The Nigerians were beaten 0-3 by the European giants in the quarterfinals making it the third consecutive time the cadet side failed to go beyond the last eight.
Bala said the side made bold progress winning all their group matches for the first time in the history of the championship.
“We made progress in Costa Rica even though we were eliminated in the quarterfinals as it was the case in the past two editions but for the first time in the history of the side’s participation in the championship we were able to win all our group matches.
“It has never happened previously and we need to highlight the performance so that we can work on it in our next participation.
“I know for sure our next participation won’t be like this one, it’ll surely be better compared with past ones.”
“I think we were not disgraced at the championship, only that we had a terribly bad day against Spain.
“Against Colombia they scored first and we came from behind to even score as well as grab the match winner, but against Spain nothing seemed to fit into place.
“I believe that wasn’t our day because we had every foot wrong. For once I started thinking of destiny.
“We never bargained to come back home now. Our expectations were to play in the final, even some FIFA technical officials after seeing our three group matches believed we were good for the final, too,” said the former Super Falcons assistant coach to supersport.com.
Nkiyu however refused to blame the side’s star and experienced player, Chinwendu Ihezuo for shooting blank at the championship.
“Though an attacker is expected to score goals but at times he or she ends up providing the assists that result into goals.
“It’s not necessary the attacker must score, Chinwendu Ihezuo played very well in Azerbaijan but didn’t have enough scoring chances in Costa Rica.
“That explains the newness of the side with only three, four players progressing into the Costa Rica squad from the Azerbaijan squad.
“I don’t think Ihezuo had a bad performance in Costa Rica. It does happen in football talking about off day,” said the former Niger Tornadoes head coach.