Flamingos head coach, Bankole Olowookere, has assured that the team has gotten over their opening-day defeat to Canada and are now looking forward to their next FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup group match against France, www.aclsports.com reports.
Nigeria began their campaign with a disappointing 4-1 loss to Canada, but Olowookere insists that the mood in camp has improved significantly, with the players showing strong mental response and readiness ahead of Wednesday’s encounter.
“For now the camp is calm although the first day isn’t easy after the loss it was tough, but that’s why we are here as a coach and we are like a parent to them. We have to calm them down, it happens sometimes, we soak it and come over it.
”We are doing a lot of things to bring them back to themselves, trying fun activities like swimming and full recovery. Mentally I think they are fine now and looking at the training sessions, the response was just massive. We’ve gotten over it and looking forward to the next match against France,” Olowookere said.
The coach added that the team has addressed the lapses from their last game and worked on improving concentration and finishing.
“I can’t lay everything down here but we’ve seen the problem and spoken ourselves that there’s a crack on the bridge and we are trying to fix it. We identified the problem in the last match especially towards the end of the game, a lot of things went wrong.
”Our level of concentration was bad, we are trying to make sure such a thing don’t happen again. Looking at the first half against Canada, we had control and we should be able to make use of our chances. That’s what we are working on.”
Olowookere also apologised to Nigerians for the loss to Canada and promised a better performance against France.
“Honestly we’re seriously under pressure, there are many Nigerians that really believe in me, in my technical crew and the team. I have to tender apologise to Nigerians and those non-Nigerians that came around to cheer us up.
”We are so sorry, we are going to make it count in the next match and put smiles on your faces. It was an ugly situation but it’s part of football. Sometimes you have it bad, but the ability to fix it back really matters. By God’s grace, we will get the three points.”
Flamingos captain, Shakirat Moshood, echoed her coach’s optimism, saying the team is determined to make amends.
“Firstly our first game, we are not happy about it but going into the second game, we are going to win because we are ready for them. After that lose we are working hard for the second match, I know we are going to win by the grace of God,” she said.
On how the team regrouped, Moshood added: “We talked to ourselves and gingered ourselves, no matter what we should always be hardworking and prepare for the next one.”
She also had a message for Nigerians: “We are sorry for the loss and promising them that the next match we are going to do well and make them proud and happy.”
Wednesday’s crucial Group D encounter between Nigeria and France will take place at the Mohammed VI Football Academy, with kick-off scheduled for 8pm (Nigerian time).
