As reactions continue trailing the official release of Nigeria’s squad list of 24 players for this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, a respected female football coach, Bala Nikyu, believes the Super Falcons can bring the trophy back home, which is what their fans want.
Sports247 reports that, with WAFCON 2025 set to kick off on July 5th in Rabat, many Nigerians are already apprehensive of a likely slump for the Falcons, due to what appeared to be poor preparation the team got at home, but Nikyu insists they can make their fans happy.
The former handler of Nigeria’s cadet women’s national team, Flamingoes, added that Coach Justin Madugu’s Falcons are already soaring high and in a vibrant mood, hence his verdict that they do not need any long-term preparation for them to shine at Maroc 2025.
He declared, “If you are up, you are up. It’s just left for us to try to maintain our balance and continue with what we are used to doing.
“It’s not actually the length of preparation that is the matter. You may have a little time, but with quality preparation, you can still make it.”
Nikyu’s verdict comes ahead of the Falcons’ flight to Lisbon this Sunday, where they are billed to play hosts Portugal in a penultimate build-up friendly on Monday, following which they will take on Ghana in Morocco for their last preparatory match on June 29th.
Ahead of both high-profile matches, Nikyu concluded by stating emphatically that he believes the Falcons can make the best of any short-term plan and still go on to fly high at the continental women’s football showpiece in North Africa.
“It’s not ideal to have a longer period of preparation, but waste your time doing nothing. You can have a shorter time and a quality plan that would still give us what we want,” said Nikyu, who also previously coached Wikki Tourist FC of Bauchi in the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL).
He will now hope to see a better run for the Falcons than the fourth-place finish they had at the last edition of the elite women’s competition that also took place in Morocco, where Nigeria lost the third-place match to Zambia, after falling to South Africa in the semi-finals.
This time out, Madugu’s side will try to hit the ground running when they tango Tunisia in their first group match in Casablanca on July 6th, following which they will face Algeria and then end their first round games against Botswana
