Sports Revelation Online ..breaking authenic sports reports
By Harry Awurumibe, Africa’s No.1 Women’s Football Journalist
Super Falcons. ..Now has two new coaches
Apparently not satisfied with the recent unimpressive performances of the Super Falcons, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Tuesday made good its earlier pledge to “rejig” the technical staff by reabsorbing two former coaches, Justin Madugu and Edwin Okon into the technical crew of the senior women national squad.
A press statement from NFF Director of Communications, Ademola Olajire said that in a brief meeting presided over by President of the NFF, Amaju Melvin Pinnick at the Federation’s headquarters in Abuja, Madugu was designated the new 1st Assistant Coach of the Super Falcons while Edwin Okon, Chief Coach of Rivers Angels FC, will be Chief Scout for the squad.
Both coaches have had stints with the Super Falcons with Okon winning African Women’s Championship (AWC) in 2014 in Namibia as Head Coach, beating Cameroon 2-1 in the final and also qualifying and taking Nigeria to the FIFA Women World Cup final in Canada in 2015 while Madugu was Assistant Coach to ex-Super Falcons Head Coach Thomas Dennerby to the last Africa Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) 2018 in Ghana and later to FIFA Women’s World Cup final in France in 2019 respectively.
New Sheriffs in Town…NFF President Amaju Pinnick (in Blue kaftan (far-left); Coach Edwin Okon (near left) NFF GS Dr. Mohammed Sanusi (center); NFF Tech. Director, Austin Eguavoen (far right) and Coach Justin Madugu (near right) in the meeting on how to revive the dwindling fortunes of once All-conquering Super Falcons.
Head Coach Randy Waldrum however keeps his position just as 1st Assistant Coach Ann Chiejine will now be 2nd Assistant Coach while 2nd Wemimo Matthew have been demoted to the national women’s U-20 team, Falconets.
Pinnick at the meeting held inside the office of the NFF General Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, told the coaches that: “I want to see a Super Falcons’ squad that is feared by the opposition not only in Africa but all over the world. I trust that you two (Madugu and Okon) will bring some positive difference to our golden Super Falcons. I don’t want to see our Falcons struggling against teams in Africa when we should actually be going toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world”.
“From now, we will scout for more players at home and abroad, particularly at home, and we will start organizing camps for the Super Falcons on the home front even before the overseas-based players arrive. We must make the effort and the investment to have a stronger squad that will continue to do Nigeria proud.”
Head Coach Randy Waldrum. ..All smiles after surviving the purge
Also present were Dr. Sanusi (who is also a qualified coach cum Technical Instructor); Technical Director, Austin Eguavoen; Director of Communications, Ademola Olajire; Ag. Director of Competitions, Ms Ruth David and; Head of International, Dayo Enebi Achor.
Following a 2-0 defeat of the Black Queens of Ghana in the first leg of the second round of the Women AFCON qualifiers, the Falcons lost 0-1 to the Queens in Accra to scrape through to the final round on 2-1 aggregate.
Following a 2-0 defeat of the Black Queens of Ghana in the first leg of the second round of the Women AFCON qualifiers, the Falcons lost 0-1 to the Queens in Accra to scrape through to the final round on 2-1 aggregate.
Victory meant the Falcons will take on the Lady Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire in the final round. The Elephants, who eliminated the Falcons from the race to the Tokyo Olympics on the away goal rule, blitzed past their counterparts from Niger Republic 20-0 on aggregate.
Nigeria will host the first leg in the second week of February 2022, with the return leg in Abidjan a week later.