Falcons battle ‘dangerous,’ better prepared Banyana for Olympics ticket

The Super Falcons.

The Super Falcons will go into today’s Paris 2024 women’s football qualifier against the Banyana Banyana of South Africa knowing that anything short of clear victory could see them out of another Olympic Games.

Nigeria has not featured in the Olympics women’s football event since the Beijing 2008 edition of the Games. The girls, who are rated as Africa’s number one team, will meet a South African side also angling to return to the Olympics after missing the Japan 2020 edition.

Although Nigeria is currently better rated in women’s football than South Africa following the Super Falcons’ exploits at the last World Cup hosted by Australia/New Zealand, the Banyana Banyana have had the edge over their opponents in recent times, with the South Africans beating Coach Randy Waldrum’s team the last time they met at the African Women’s Nations Cup in Morocco.

The South Africans appear better prepared than their Nigerian counterparts, whose top striker, AsisatOshoala, only arrived in Abuja yesterday.
Of the players invited by Waldrum for the game, only 22 trained on Tuesday at the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abujaand also on Wednesday morning, but their training session in the evening could not hold due to ‘logistics problems.’

In contrast, South Africa opened their camp on Monday last week and trained up to Saturday before moving to Nigeria on Sunday. The South African embassy in Nigeria arranged for the team’s training sessions in Abuja from Monday until they had their official sessions at the MKO Abiola National Stadium yesterday.

All the South African players have been in Abuja since Sunday, while most of the Nigerian girls arrived on Tuesday, which means that the Banyana Banyana are better acclimatised than the home team.