Super Falcons: The Way Forward

By Bunmi Blair

The FIFA women's world cup is gradually winding down without our darling Super Falcons. They raised our hopes with a superlative come-back 3-3 draw against Sweden but went missing against Australia making our last game against USA a huge mountain to climb.

But were they really woeful at the tournament? Ranked 33rd in the world, up against USA ranked 2nd, Sweden ranked 5th, Australia ranked 10th, realistically were you expecting the Super Falcons to come out of the group of death?

Some players like Azeezat Oshoala, Courtney Dike raised our hopes with some breathtaking performances at the U-20 level, where they went all the way to the final and lost narrowly to Germany, but what happened to our BBC footballer of the year at the biggest stage of it all? Without her putting up a show did we stand a chance among the elite?

Now, how did we prepare for the world cup? Did we get the best of preparations? I understand USA, Sweden and even Australia started preparing their teams since 2013. While the US played over 100 preparatory matches, Australia played over 200, Sweden would not have been number 5 on FIFA's rankings without significant number of preparatory matches as well. Now to the Super Falcons, when did they start preparing? Your guess is as good as mine!

Now that we know where we belong, what should be done?

First is Edwin Okon the right man for the Falcons' Job? Where was the team when he came in, and has he done anything to improve the team?

Edwin Okon was appointed Super Falcons coach in August 2013, at that time the team was experiencing its worst spell in history, having failed to qualify for the final of the Africa Women championship for the first time in history in Equatorial Guinea, to worsen the whole scenario they lost the third place match to South Africa, the Falcons were on a free fall to oblivion and that it was under the tutelage of one of Africa's finest coaches, Kadiri Ikhana made it looked even more fearful. The question was who can do it if Ikhana could not?

Okon who had achieved a huge success with local based team Rivers Angels, haven won the women FA cup five consecutive times coupled with several league titles and with relative success with the national women U-20 team which he led to a semi-final finish in Japan 2012, was drafted in to safe the situation. In reality did we really think Okon was the messiah? In fact he was hurriedly appointed without a valid contract signed, so that we would not miss out on a friendly match which world champions Japan had requested. Okon went to Japan and was not disgraced by the world champions and has remained the Falcons coach up to date.

Now, what has Okon achieved within this little period? First Okon turned his attention to some young crop of players, Halimatu Ayinde, Yetunde Adeboyejo, Josephine Chukwunoye, Azeezat Oshoala, Blessing Edoho, Esther Sunday, Ngozi Okobi, Uchechi Sunday, most of whom were with him at the U-20 level, blended them with experienced players like Onome Ebi, Perpetual Nkwocha, Stella Nbachu, they went to the Africa Women's Championship and won back the title for Nigeria, with a 2-0 victory over Cameroon in the final.

Aside these, Okon qualified the team for the world cup, the All Africa games and they are just two matches away from qualifying for the 2016 Olympics (the team failed to qualify for both the 2011 All Africa Games and the 2012 Olympics, under coach Uche Ucheria), has Okon done badly?

If Okon is tactically deficient like a lot of people say, what should the FA do? Hire a Swedish coach?

What happened to capacity building?

Sometimes ago, former FIFA and CAF instructor Adegboyega Onigbinde told us that Nigeria is one of the least ranked countries in Africa when it comes to coaches capacity building, he said " Nigeria has only graded 400 CAF ‘C’ License coaches, Ghana with lower population has graded over 2000 coaches, Egypt more than 8000 coaches, is that not a shame to Nigeria?" The Modakeke high chief quarried.

With the final round of the 2016 Olympics due next month, please advice our FA on what to do.