Former Super Falcons coach, Kadiri Ikhana, has played down the team’s humiliating 8-0 defeat to 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosts France, in an international friendly on Friday in Le Mans, France, Completesportsnigeria. com (CSN) reports.
It was the first game of the main Super Falcons team since they beat Cameroon 1-0 in the final of the 2016 Women Africa Cup of Nations in Yaounde.
Ikhana who was in charge of the Super Falcons when the team finished fourth at the 2012 AWCON in Equatorial Guinea, posits that new coach Thomas Dennerby must be given enough time to work with the team.
“We must understand that Thomas Dennerby is just on the ground, he has never been with the Super Falcons before and has no idea of Nigerian football before,” Ikhana told CSN.
“We should give him room to work, we cannot judge him by just one friendly match and say everything is bad. The friendly against France will help him have an idea of the team and how to improve the it.”
The 2003 CAF Champions League winning coach with Enyimba, however, called for the injection of more new players into the team.
“I think we should start to build a new team,” Ikhana said.
“I believe the coach would understand. Most of the players have been playing for some time now, like 10, 15 years. Asisat Oshoala, for instance, met some of them there.
“After analysing the Falcons, I found out that 50 per cent of the players have been long in the national team. I don’t think we should continue with them. The coach should be given like three years during which, I believe, he would be able to give us a good team.
“Let us see what he will do. I believe the Falcons is not far behind other big teams. All they need are more games which will give the coach the chance to know the players more.”