U-20 Women’s World Cup: Mabo Warns Falconets

Adebobola Alawode

Following the lacklustre performance of Nigeria’s U-20 women’s team, the Falconets in their Group C opener against Mexico early today at the ongoing FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Canada, former Super Falcons coach, Ismaila Mabo, has warned the Nigerian team to up their game if they must qualify from the group.

The Falconets played a 1-1 draw with Mexico in the crunchy encounter at the Moncton Stadium, Moncton Canada .

Mabo opined that the Nigerian team lacked the technical and tactical ability to qualify from the group stage considering the prowess of the other two group members, Korea Republic and England, who both played 1-1 to throw qualification from the group wide open.

In the words of Mabo: ‘‘I’m not really impressed with how the Falconets played against Mexico because going by the match between Korea and England, it would be tough for the Nigerian girls to scale the hurdles of the two teams because they (Korea and England) play similar pattern where all the players attack and defend, which the Nigerians would find hard to contain.’’

Coach of the team, Peter Dedevbo, told fifa.com after the match that he was disappointed with the way his ladies played. He said: “There are some matches that, although you expect to win, you can’t manage to do so, and I’m a little bit disappointed. But it was a good fight between the two teams. I have to say that Mexico’s goalkeeper, Cecilia Santiago, is impressive and produced a good performance today.

“Looking ahead to the next match I want to work on every position on the field -goalkeeper, defence, midfield, but the most important thing we need to improve on is our finishing.”

Christopher Cuellar, Mexico coach said: “Mexico have played several times with Nigeria in several categories and we knew this was going to be a very physical game, so we told the girls not to back down.

“It was a tough match with chances for both sides and it’s always nice to start with a positive result. Obviously it would have been better getting the three points, but starting a tournament with a draw was not bad either, especially when, like today, it’s a tight match.”

Nigeria displayed their trademark speed and strength from the outset, and Asisat Oshoala had a glorious chance to break the deadlock when she latched onto a long ball, but her clipped shot over the advancing goalkeeper narrowly cleared the crossbar.

However, Mexico soon settled and it was they who opened the scoring. Fabiola Ibarra slotted home from 20 metres after an inadequate headed clearance from Nigeria goalkeeper Sandra Chiichii as she attempted to nullify a swift counter-attack.

At the other end Mexico’s senior national team goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago needed to use all her experience to keep out Loveth Ayila’s angled shot with an impressive save.

Nigeria, however, would not be denied and they drew level three minutes before the interval. Osarenoma Igbinovia made the most of a defensive error to expertly fire the ball from distance high into the corner of Santiago’s goal.

Nigeria, having defeated El Tri 1-0 in the Japan 2012 quarter-final, again looked likely to inflict further pain on their rivals creating numerous chances in the second half.

Oshoala was the main attacking outlet for Nigeria, firstly being denied by the busy Santiago with a smart block, before setting up Courtney Dike who narrowly failed to arrive in time to convert a glorious opening.

Ugo Njoku’s header from a perfect Ayila corner went narrowly wide before Mexico’s best chance of the second half arrived with 15 minutes remaining. The impressive Tania Samarzich dribbled past two opponents, only to fire wide when faced with the target.

The livewire Oshoala then did likewise in the dying minutes but blazed over with only Santiago to beat.