REVEALED: Why Flamingos Crashed Out In Morocco 

By Harry Awurumibe

Three years after claiming their first-ever bronze medal at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in India after defeating Germany 3-2 on penalties, Nigeria’s U-17 women’s national team nicknamed the Flamingos, have continued to wobble and fumble out of two successive editions of the global junior women’s football tournament.

Nigeria claimed her first-ever bronze medal at the 2022 U-17 Women’s World Cup in India after defeating Germany 3-2 on penalties under the watchful eyes of head coach Bankole Olowookere.

Although the Flamingos blew a three-goal lead and allowed the Germans back into the game before playing in their third consecutive penalty shoot-out, having played against the United States of America in the quarter-finals before playing Colombia in the semis in the tournament.

The bronze medal was celebrated in Nigeria like the team won gold and Nigerians believed that their team have arrived especially women’s football followers who expected the Flamingos to go a step further to win either the  gold or silver medal in the next FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Dominican Republic in 2024.

However, expectations that the Flamingos will rise up to the occasion quickly disappeared like the early morning dews as Nigeria crashed out of the 2024 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup after losing to the United States of America (USA) 2-0 in the quarterfinals with both goals scored in either half of the game.

Also, a year after the Flamingos’s failure in Dominican Republic, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) still gave coach Olowookere the opportunity to lead the team to the next global women’s competition in Morocco.

Luckily, with the world football governing body FIFA handing an African country Morocco the mandate to host the junior wonen’s world cup yearly from 2025, many Nigerians were of the opinion that the Flamingos will bounce back to the winning ways and lead the African charge to win the coveted trophy on the African soil.

But that was not to be as despite the huge expectations, Nigeria’s Flamingos began their 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup campaign on a disappointing note after suffering a 4-1 defeat to Canada in their opening Group D match at the Mohammed VI Football Academy in Salé, Morocco, on Sunday, October 20, 2025.

Again, Nigeria’s Flamingos went on to lose 0-1 to France in the second group match as the hope of Nigeria advancing to the knockout stages of the tournament became slim following the loss against France, her second loss in as many games.

Nevertheless, Nigeria won her only match by trashing hapless debutante

Samoa 4-0 off the back of Joseph Queen’s brace to progress to the Round of 16 of the 2025 FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup.

Shakirat Moshood and Azeezat Oduntan got the other goals for the Flamingos as three points took Nigeria to the Round of 16 for a date with Italy.

Sadly, the euphoria of the four nil trashing of the Samoan girls hardly died down than Nigeria’s Flamingos saw their FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup journey come to a disappointing end on Tuesday, October 28,2025,

after suffering a 4-0 defeat to Italy in the Round of 16 at the Mohammed VI Football Academy in Morocco.

The Flamingos, who advanced as one of the best third-placed teams, were up against a well-drilled Italian side that had won all three of their group games.

Despite a lively start, the African giants struggled to impose itself against Italy’s precision and power, and for this reason, the Bankole Olowookere-led Flamingos capitulated later in the game and were walloped 4-0 by the Italian girls.

By that result, Nigeria once again returned home empty-handed as it happened in the Dominican Republic last year. The 9team conceded nine goals in four matches and scored a total of five with a deficit of four goals.

The poor performances of Olowookere’s Flamingos in back to back FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup finals have left a sour taste in the mouth of Nigeria football lovers, especially with the glut of football talents in Nigeria which would have made Nigeria one of the nations to dominate women’s football both in the continent and globally.

In fact, Nigeria which is one of the countries to play in the inaugural edition of this competition in New Zealand in 2008 has not won the ultimate crown even as North Korea has won it a record-setting three times in 2008, 2016 and 2024 respectively while Spain has won it twice in 2018 and 2022.

Other countries that have won the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup are South Korea (2010), France (2012), and Japan (2014) just as Africa through Nigeria and Ghana can only manage third-place finish in India in 2022 and in Azerbaijan in 2012.

A closer look at the overall performance of the Flamingos in Morocco showed that the team paraded by Nigeria lacked tactical and technical qualities to go further in the competition as Nigeria fell to the superior tactical prowess of three out of the four countries the Flamingos met in Morocco.

This was the reason Nigeria fell like a pack of cards in the 4-1 loss to Canada, 0-1 defeat by France, and another 4-0 walloping by Italy, a situation which showed clearly that the Nigerian team could not match their Canadian, French and Italian opponents tactically,  technically and otherwise.

Simply put, the Nigerian team did not have what it takes to win big games and deserved to be knocked out of the competition early by the teams that were better prepared for the tournament.

Indeed, the spate of defeats have exposed the technical and tactical deficiencies of  the Nigerian team in the back to back failure to FFprogress beyond the quarter-final stage of the U-17 Women’s World Cup finals in 2024 in Dominican Republic and 2025 in Morocco.

The scandalous 4-1 loss to Canada in the group stage and 4-0 comprehensive annihilation by Italy in the Round of 16 have also exposed the standard of the Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) where the 21 players who featured for the Flamingos were drawn from.

It clearly shows that the  NWFL is not up to the European, Asian, South and North American standards or even up to the standard of the domestic leagues in South Africa and North African countries of Morocco, Egypt and Algeria.

In the above-mentioned countries or regions, the women’s football leagues are well structured and professionally administered, with clubs having their own facilities, including stadia, hostels, academies, administrative support system ably manned by technocrats or people who have pedigrees in football management in order to achieve better results.

But in Nigeria, anything goes. Better still, cronyism, tribalism, and nepotism reign supreme in who gets what or when too. In our clime, the best man does not get the job, no matter how good he or she is.

Meanwhile, modern football has gone beyond the efforts of the head coach and two assistants who may not be technically and tactically

knowledgeable in decoding the patterns adopted by their opponents.

It is an open secret that the Nigerian team to Morocco did not have technical support staff like a video analyst/match reader, fitness trainer, set pieces coach, and psychologist, among others.

The role these members of the technical crew play in modern football can not be over emphasized as they work behind the scenes to ensure that their teams grind out good results from losing positions in most cases.

Unknown to many, Super Falcons’ 10th CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) title win in Morocco last July would not have been possible without a deliberate decision taken by the NFF leadership to employ two European football experts Igor Krulj,  a Video Analyst/Match Reader and Per Karlsson, a Fitness Trainer, who assisted Nigerian coaches Justin Madugu, Ann Chiejine and Auwwal Makwalla to go through six matches without losing any match.

*HARVEST OF BAD RESULTS*

Aside winning the 2025 WAFCON in Morocco earlier in the year by Nigeria’s senior women’s football team Super Falcons, Nigerian teams both national teams and clubs have performed woefully in both continental and global competitions.

For example, Nigeria’s U-17 boys, Golden Eaglets was knocked out of the WAFU-B Championship after a 2-0 defeat to Ghana’s Black Starlets in Abidjan on Tuesday, September 30, 2015

The loss in the semi-final mean Nigeria will not take part in the 2026 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations, which serves as the only route to qualify for the next FIFA U-17 World Cup. It is the second consecutive time the Eaglets will miss out on the global tournament, despite being five-time world champions and the most successful team in the competition’s history.

The setback came as a huge disappointment for Nigeria, who topped their group in style after scoring four goals and conceding just once. But against Ghana, they failed to deliver when it mattered most. The Black Starlets, who struggled through the group stage, rose to the occasion.

With this defeat, Nigeria will miss out on three major opportunities: the WAFU-B trophy, the U17 AFCON in 2026, and qualification for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar.

The Golden Eaglets last appeared at the U-17 World Cup in 2019, where they reached the Round of 16. They also missed the 2017 and 2023 editions, while the 2021 tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic.

For many Nigerian fans, the decline is worrying. From the heights of Victor Osimhen’s record-breaking 10 goals at the 2015 tournament to this latest disappointment, the once-feared Golden Eaglets are now struggling to live up to their legacy.

Worse still, on October 9, 2025, Argentina trashed Nigeria 4-0 as the Flying Eagles led by head coach Aliyu Zubairu crashed out of FIFA U-20 World Cup. Six-time champions Argentina eliminated Nigeria from the ongoing FIFA U20 World Cup finals in Chile on Wednesday evening, winning their Round of 16 tie in Santiago 4-0 to avenge the Flying Eagles’ own triumph over them at the same stage when the Argies hosted the tournament two years ago.

Defeat meant elimination from this year’s championship for two-time silver medallists Nigeria while the Young Albiceleste will now take on Mexico in the quarter-finals.

Although the Super Falcons   secured a place at the 2026 WAFCON following a 1-1 draw with the Benin Republic at the Moshood Abiola Sports Arena, Abeokuta, on Tuesday, October 28,2025, in the return leg of the qualifiers after winning 2-0 away in the first leg, experts believe that the home draw was not good enough for the pedigree of the reigning African champions.

*WHY NIGERIAN TEAMS NEED VIDEO ANALYST, FITNESS TRAINERS*

One common denominator in the recent poor performances of Olowookere’s Flamingos; Zubairu’s Flying Eagles and Manu Garba’s Golden Eaglets squads in quick succession at the continental and global competitions are technical and or tactical deficiencies of the Nigerian teams.

None of the teams had the full compliments of the technical crew, a situation which left the teams vulnerable to defeats no matter how hard they prepared for the tournaments.

Finally, until Nigeria do the right thing, our teams, both national and clubs, will continue to struggle at the African continent and world stage.

I Rest My Case

HARRY AWURUMIBE, is Women’s Football Aficionado