Nigeria women's national football team, the Super Falcons, haven't had much success at the Olympic Games despite their continental domination, but coach Randy Waldrum feels his young side can make an impact in Paris.
One of two African teams in the women's tournament, the other being NWSL fan favourites Zambia , the Super Falcons will face Marta 's Brazil , Japan , and FIFA Women's World Cup winners Spain in the group stage, so they will really need to be at their best to advance.
Waldrum, the American veteran coach, will become only the second coach, after the legendary Ismaila Mabo, to lead the Super Falcons to both the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
The late Mabo, who led the Super Falcons to the 1999 World Cup where they qualified for the 2000 Olympics by reaching the quarterfinals, also led them to the 2004 Games.
There, they notched Africa's first win at the tournament with victory over Japan, and qualified for the knockout stage, also for the first, and so far only, time.
They lost all six games in 2000 and 2008, but in keeping with the Mabo parallel, Waldrum has sent out a warning to the opposition that his team have set their sight on advancing from the group as a measure of success.
"The goal is to get out of the group," he told ESPN, while acknowledging the strength of the opposition.
"This is even a more difficult group than the World Cup. So I have to be realistic, my hope and my belief is we're going to fight to try to get out of the group. If we can get out of the group, then it's clearly been a success."
Before the World Cup, there are many who would have scoffed at such a bold ambition from Nigeria. Not anymore.
Waldrum's iteration of the Super Falcons proved in Australia that they could stand and trade punches with some of the world's best, reaching the quarterfinals where they lost a pulsating encounter against England on penalties.
He added: "We sent a message based on our performance at the World Cup. I've never been one to use the media as my outlet to brag about our team. But I don't think any of the three teams in our group will be underestimating us after what they saw at the World Cup.
"To be able to play the Olympic gold medalists Canada like we did, and then to play Australia and get a result. And then obviously, the European champions, England. I thought we were the better team on the night against England. The warning shot was already fired there."
Waldrum has had to make a shift in tactical strategy for the Super Falcons. Long famed as a team built on attacking flamboyance, they have always been exciting to watch, only to be let down by streetball defending.
Waldrum's biggest success has been to shift away from that mentality, tempering the swashbuckling, careless attacking into more precision advance but one built on organized, structured defensive foundations.
"We've really spent a lot of time on our shape and our defensive block and how we want to play and our discipline in that area," he said. "Prior to the World Cup, we had maybe 10 days to train and the emphasis really was only on two things.
"One was defending within the block and how we wanted to manage it and how high we wanted to play it, how low we wanted to play it depending on the opponent, and the other was how to counterattack out of it.
"We knew we weren't going to have a lot of the ball and I would suspect similar situations at the Olympics. We're going to have to be very disciplined defensively and a lot of our play is going to have to come from counter attacking.
"We haven't had the time together that those teams have to really develop a game model to where we're really confident in keeping the ball against those teams."
The key to this appears to be having more youngsters in the team. Former captain Onome Ebi and forward Francisca Ordega have both been left out, with some exciting young talents like Tosin Demehin, Deborah Abiodun and Chinwendu Ihezuo taking centre stage.
The coach added: "It's the right way to do it. I'm really proud of a couple of players that we just brought in.
"We've kind of been struggling for consistent number nine that could not only hold up play but be creative and then actually create goalscoring chances and things.
"Deborah is going to be a big star for Nigeria as time goes on and a young player like Tosin (Demehin) in the back is going to be a player that's going to hold the fort down for many years to come for Nigeria back there.
"I'm excited about the young players but I really do like the core of our team."
Brazil are up first for the Super Falcons, and they will get a chance to see where they stand.
Waldrum wants them to take and apply the lessons they learnt from their Australia adventures: "We have to stay switched on for 90 minutes and understand that it only takes a moment for a game to change either for you or against you.
"We've got to be more efficient in dead ball situations because you're not going to get a ton of chances with those three teams.
"Our ability to be more clinical with our chances is also going to be vital, we have to do a better job, because you're not going to get 10-12 shots again on these teams.
"You're going to get two or three chances, probably, and you've got to be good enough to put one in and make sure defensively to keep them from putting goals."
Most Popular
Comments / 0