Nigeria’s Super Falcons face not just their most daunting task yet in the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations but arguably their biggest threat yet to their unblemished Women’s AFCON final game record on Saturday.
Nigeria have won the championship an unassailable nine times and Mission X reaches a crescendo at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat with the question of what the outcome will be for Africa’s strongest team – a joyous night or an excruciating anticlimax!
However it turns out to be, history will be made on Saturday in Rabat because while Nigeria, led imperiously by Justin Madugu pursues its Mission X on the last lap, Jorge Vilda’s Morocco will seek to have their first senior continental title as scant reward for their huge investment in infrastructure in the past five years plus.
For Nigeria, they face a familiar foe in the same city with the wound of their defeat three years ago still fresh to their remembrance while galvanising the Falcons all the way through to this final. Can lightning strike same place twice? Well, here are four things Nigeria must overcome to land in Space X.
1. The vociferous fans
More than 20,000 loud fans will cram into the Olympic Stadium in Rabat on Saturday for this AFCON finale and that alone could be an obstacle and considering that the hosts have at least been used to this since the start of the competition, that is an advantage to them.
Nigeria barely averaged 7,000 fans in each of their games at the Larbi Zaouli Stadium, Casablanca before this final so returning to this city of their semi final loss in 2022 on such an occasion is one they must be prepared to overcome if they must etch their names in gold! The chants, the smoke, the whistles and the lasers are what await in Rabat.
2. An unknown pitch
The three elements that most directly impact a player’s performance in a game are the pitch, the boot and the match ball. Every footballer wants familiarity with these three elements before a game and for Nigeria’s Falcons, they only know their boots and the match ball before Saturday’s final, not the pitch.
While Nigeria have played all their matches on the drier Casablanca pitch, the Atlas Lionesses have played all their games on the wetter Rabat pitch. Seeing that none of the teams will train on the pitch before the final, Nigeria’s Mission X must be achieved on a turf totally alien to the players before match day.
3. The dreaded decision makers
If you are a believer that little details matter in football, like I do, then you may not have been so impressed with officiating at this WAFCON tournament. Matches have been characterised by in-game indecisions by officials that are capable of deciding major games.
Saturday’s occasion is one that will require the match officials to be at an incredible level of dispensing judgment in the little matters on the pitch, something I am not too optimistic about. This is an unseen obstacle for the actuality of Mission X and the players must be psychologically ready to face this.
4. A scary promotional dejavu
For a second successive year, a Nigerian senior national team get into the final stage of a continental tournament which was heralded by a media buzz. Like ‘Let’s Do It Again’, like “Mission X’ but the women will hope to rise where their male counterparts stumbled.
Like the Eagles, the Super Falcons have gone past two COSAFA teams during knockout en route to a final clash with the host nation. The difference being that while the Eagles were visibly worn-out before the Abidjan final, the Falcons are still visibly fit like they were at the start of the competition. But does the trend scare you? Maybe.
Morocco may have the sense of now or never because who knows when next they will host the competition which has specially been favourable to hosts? For Nigeria though, they have every reason to be confident of landing their tenth and perhaps sweetest continental crown yet.
