FRIENDLY: Waldrum plays down Falcons’ defeats to US

Published on: 11 September 2022

Super Falcons coach, Randy Waldrum, has played down his side’s back-to-back defeats to the United States last week.

The sides first met in Kansas City, where the world champions came away with a 4-0 victory before the Falcons suffered another 2-1 defeat to the USA in Washington last Tuesday which was followed by another 2-1 defeat in Washington last Tuesday.

Uchenna Kanu’s goal in the 2-1 defeat was the first time the Falcons had scored against the USA in two decades.

After a disappointing Womens Africa Cup of Nations semi-final exit on penalties, it is three straight defeats for the nine-time African champions – who were without six starters because of injuries and visa issues.

“Any time you play against the best in the world, you are going to have challenges,” Waldrum told the BBC.

“But everything we do to move forward is in preparation for the World Cup, so we look less on the results and more on performances.

“We will study the video from the first match and try to clean up some things defensively, because the hard part is playing against not just the best team in the world but a team that is really in top form presently.

“We will continue to grow as a team and do better at the World Cup than we did in Morocco.”

The Nigeria Football Federation announced last month that it is reviewing the team’s WAFCON performance, saying a “thorough evaluation of the capability of the coaching crew to lead the team to a creditable performance at the World Cup” is ongoing.

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