Why Nigeria Crashed Out Of World Cup – Danjuma

Chief Coach of Nigeria’s U-20 women team, the Falconets, Christopher Danjuma, told FRANCIS ACHI what led to Nigeria’s elimination from the recently held FIFA U-20 Women’s Wold Cup in France and other issues

Kindly introduce yourself to our esteemed readers.

My name is Christopher Danjuma , the Chief Coach of Falconets of Nigeria.

Against all odds the Falconets eliminated China to qualify for the quarter finals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in France before losing 1-2 to Spain. What really happened in the game?

It was a great experience. A worthwhile experience for the girls and they deserved to be commended. The team were gallant in defeat. These are girls that were all from the league in Nigeria. This is the first Falconets team that were entirely home based players without foreign professional players unlike in the past. The girls held their ground in the tournament, although I felt the team could have done better against Spain.

Would you say the Falconets were highly motivated going into the just concluded FIFA Womens Under 20 tournament in France?

You even saw the way the tournament in France itself was organised. The issue of women or female football, I don’t know if it has to do with women factor. It is like a global phenomenon, a kind of lacklustre attitude towards women football and it was very glaring in France. I don’t know if FIFA preferred the tournament to be played at the grassroots stadia because where the matches were played did not reflect atmosphere of a world cup tournament. Perhaps, the aim was to take the tournament to the grassroots.

Any hope for Women Football in Nigeria?

Yes. There is a great hope for women football in Nigeria. If players from the Nigerian women clubsides made up the entire Falconets team to France and held their nerves against top teams in women’s football in the world, I think there is a great future in our women’s football. I am not making excuse for failure but the team played very well against Germany before conceding the lone goal in the second half. Spain, the European champions did not get an easy ride to the semi finals against the Falconets. The team did not lose because they were completely overwhelmed. It was a just a momentarily lost of concentration; little seconds switch off in the game that cost us our elimination from the tournament. All these simply point to the fact that there is a great hope for women football in Nigeria.

How hopeful are you that Nigeria can win the tournament in the future having played in the finals of both 2010 and 2014 tournaments held in Germany and Canada respectively?

If you check England especially from their concentration on their age grade teams, you will discovered that England is focusing more on the development of their talents at their formative stage. England is now a force to reckon with in the age grade tournaments with the country holding the current status as champions of FIFA Under 17 World Cup and FIFA Under 20 World Cup in the men’s category and their female Under 20 were eliminated at the semi final stage of the tournament. You can see that the whole idea is to keep on developing the game and that is what the Nigeria Football Federation NFF has been doing over the years and Aisha Falode’s team has started something that has shown impact with what these girls have done in France. If more is being done, it will add value to the Super Falcons. We have players that will perfectly fit into the Super Falcons within the next two years if they remain consistent in their performance on the field.
Football is all about getting a good foundation.  Again, with the way the women’s league is developing , if more effort is put to help Aisha Falode led board of the Women League in Nigeria on what she has set to do, I think Nigeria will not just be participating at the FIFA Under 20 Women’s World Cup , but Falconets can make history by bringing the  trophy to Africa and Nigeria for the first time.