Match Preview: Super Falcons battles Olympic champions for Group B supremacy
Recap
Melbourne Rectangular Stadium
Nigeria Women
Canada Women
Nigeria and Canada will face off in a Women’s World Cup Group A match on Friday, July 21, 2023, at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.
Both teams have met twice at the FIFA Women’s World previously, and they will open their account for this ninth edition of women football’s greatest show-piece when they clash at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium on Friday.
In their first FIFA World Cup meeting, in Sweden on 8 June 1995, both teams played out a 3-3 draw at the Olympia in Helsingborg, with Nigeria’s goals coming from Rita Nwadike, Patience Avre and Adaku Okoroafor. This was after Canada had stomped to a 2-0 lead within 20 minutes. Both teams were eliminated at the group stage.
They met again in Germany in 2011, when Perpetua Nkwocha’s 73rd minute goal made the difference at the Rudolf-Harbig Stadium in Dresden. Again, both teams were eliminated.
Canada had beaten the Super Falcons twice in friendlies before their latest encounter – a 2-2 draw in Victoria City in February 2022.
However, Friday, 21 July 2023 is a new day with lots of promises for both teams, with the Canadian girls carrying a big markup as reigning Olympic champions, and having five players in their ranks with more than 100 caps at international level: Christine Sinclair, Sophie Schmidt, Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence and Jessie Fleming.
Sinclair is both the world’s record international caps holder (323) and record international scorer (190). At 40, she is attending her sixth Women’s World Cup finals.
Canada’s best performance at the Women’s World Cup was in 2003, when they lost the bronze medal match to hosts USA. When they hosted the competition eight years ago, they were bundled out by the USA in the quarter-finals.
The Super Falcons, who had a 15-day final training camp in Gold Coast ahead of this tournament, are in excellent spirit, having won their last four matches and brimming with an awesome winning mentality.
Most recently, they defeated the Queensland Lions FC 8-1 in Brisbane, after wins over Costa Rica (Mexico, February) and Haiti and New Zealand (Turkey, April).
The Super Falcons reached the quarter-finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1999, coming close to the semi-finals after drawing 3-3 in regulation time, before losing on the golden goal rule.
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Team news
Sophie Schmidt and Jessie Fleming have both sat out training this week and, while Canada coach Priestman has played down concerns over their availability, Fleming in particular looks to be a genuine doubt.
Waldrum has admitted that he, too, has a couple of injury concerns, although the Nigeria coach was keen to avoid sharing the identity of the players concerned.
The Falcons will miss the services of key midfielders Rasheedat Ajibade and Halimatu Ayinde, who were sent off during the second half of Nigeria’s semi-final clash with Morocco at last year’s Women AFCON, and handed two-match bans. They served one ban in the third-place game against Zambia days after.
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Stats
- Nigeria are the only African team to have featured in all nine editions of this tournament.
- The Super Falcons’ best showing came in 1999, when they were narrowly beaten by
by Brazil in a thrilling quarter-final. France 2019, at which they lost to Germany in the last 16, is the only other tournament in which they have progressed to the knockout stage. - Onome Ebi, already the first African to play at five Women’s World Cups, is poised to appear in a record-extending sixth.
- Canada are competing in their eighth consecutive Women’s World Cup, having missed only the inaugural tournament in 1991. They have reached the knockout stage at each of the last two editions.
- Christine Sinclair is aiming to become the first player to score in six different editions of this tournament. She currently shares the record of five with Marta.
