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By Amaechi Agbo

On Monday, 15 home-based Super Falcons as well as 15 foreign players were invited to Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital for a nine-day camping ahead of their 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, AWCON qualifier against Lady Elephants of Ivory Coast, www bestchoicesports.com.ng can report.

The camping which started on Monday will last till 30th November, 2021.

It is the first time in as many years the Nigerian senior national female football team Super Falcons are having such large number of domestic league players in her roaster. And the reason for such invitation is not far fetched

Super Falcons have been a weak team in recent times with results indicating a downward spiral fall of the most successful female team in Africa.

A 3-1 bashing by South Africa’s Bayana Bayana in the September final of the Aisha Buhari Cup as well as 1-0 defeat against Black Queens of Ghana in the 2022 AWCON qualifier (although the Falcons qualifed to the final round with 2-1 aggravate win) exposed the dept of deficiencies in the team.

And ahead of a clash with the Lady Elephants who in October 2019 stopped the nine-time AWCON champions from qualifying for the 2020 Olympics held in Japan in July this year, the coach of the side, Randy Waldrum and the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF were thrown into panic.

Speaking after the team had her day three training at the Goal Project, Package B of the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja on Thursday, Randy Waldrum said that 15 Nigeria Women’s Football League, NWFL players were invited into the camp to help the team qualify for the African Women’s Nations Cup.

He stressed that the team did not have the best of players when they played Ghana last month.

“I don’t think we have the best team against Ghana. We didn’t have our best players available. That’s why we brought in some new players here to give me the opportunity to see which of them is going to help us qualify for the next qualifying round.” Waldrum told Super Falcons Media Officer, Oluchi Tobechukwu.

“We have the potential and decent squad for Ivory Coast than we had against Ghana.” He added.

“Well, what we trying to do is that I wanted to bring in some players we have been using and also bring in 14 or 15 new faces here as well that we have been tracking and monitoring,” he said.

The American guyyer noted that the team is making progress adding that he would give the new players opportunity during the two-legged qualifiers.

“We are making progress for the next qualifiers and we are working towards given chance to the new players. We understand that we have to advance our game in order to be at the Cup of Nations.

“It’s very important that we put in our best performances in which we didn’t do in Ghana and I think we understand the task at hand and we are going to improve in our performances. We have to do our very best to advance to the Cup of Nations.” he stated

The Ivoriens stopped the Super Falcons from qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics after they held the Chris Danjuma led ladies to a 1-1 draw in Agege Stadium, Lagos on October 7, 2019.

The reverse leg on 4th October same year had ended 0-0 in Abidjan. The final 2022 AWCON qualifier will hold in February next year