The 28,000 –capacity Roazhon Park in Rennes is venue for Monday’s big FIFA Women’s World Cup clash between Nigeria and France, with group leaders Les Bleues already qualified for the knockout rounds and the Super Falcons looking for a ticket to that corridor.
Head Coach Thomas Dennerby too his charges through a pre-match final training session on Sunday at the Stade Edmund Blanchet and reiterated that a positive mindset, as well as a calm, collected and surefooted approach can work wonders for the Falcons against the French.
“This is an important for us and I believe you can rise to the occasion just as you did against the Koreans. The French have a good team but we are also a good squad and I think we can get a result if we have that mindset that it is eleven players against eleven and we stick to our tactics for the day.
“Victory against the Koreans was very good. But I can assure that beating France would be even sweeter. It will certainly take us to the knockout stage and also win us that confidence that we can prevail against any team.”
Nigeria’s power-playing trio – Desire Oparanozie, Rita Chikwelu and Francisca Ordega – all must play with caution as they are each on a yellow card and would be ruled out of the Round of 16 if they are cautioned against the Les Bleues on Monday.
Yet, the African champions refuse to be bothered by this and captain Desire Oparanozie told thenff.com they know the approach to adopt in Rennes.
“The win over Korea Republic taught us that so much is possible if we put our minds to it and we work hard. There is nothing to fear. We will go in there against France and give our best, and we are confident that our best will be good enough to take us to the next round.”
The Nigeria Football Federation has dismissed as misleading, statements by former Youth and Sports Minister Solomon Dalung at the weekend that the Federation omitted the budget for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations from its 2019 programmes sent to the Ministry.
“There is no truth to the claim that the NFF omitted the AFCON from its budget,” NFF Executive Committee member and Chairman of the Media and Publicity Committee, Hon. (Dr) Suleiman Yahaya-Kwande told thenff.com on Sunday.
“The truth is that major competitions are never part of the regular budgets since, in most cases, qualification campaigns are still on course while budgets are being prepared for the following year. Thus, they are always sourced from intervention funds.
“We qualified for the 2019 AFCON in November 2018, after the 1-1 draw with South Africa in Johannesburg. That was too late to include in the budget for 2019, which we had submitted around September/October 2018.
So, we knew the grace would be for the AFCON fund to be sourced from special intervention, and not from the proposal that had been submitted earlier as regular program.
“For instance, the 2018 FIFA World Cup budget was also sourced from intervention fund. We qualified for that competition in October 2017 and we could not have included it in the regular program for the year 2018.”
Kwande, who actually defended the NFF budget for the year 2019 at the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, said that the NFF at this time is only interested in ensuring that the National Teams (male and female) excel at their respective tournaments in which they are representing Nigeria, and would ordinarily not respond to Mr. Dalung’s statements, but noted that it is important to put records straight to avoid misleading the public.
“For the regular annual budgets, we put together our budget for every competition and send to the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports, which then puts a covering note and recommends to the Presidency, from where the document heads to the Finance Ministry and then onwards to the Budget Office.
Since this NFF administration came into office, as was the case for some time before it, the Federation usually received what is called an ‘envelope’. So, the only way to prosecute major competitions is to depend on the grace of intervention funds.
“Few weeks after we qualified for the AFCON 2019, we sent a budget to the Ministry. We sent this same budget about three times as we were always being told to re-submit.
“Mr. Dalung was Minister of Sports for three-and-half years and not once did the NFF bypass the Ministry to submit a budget to the Presidency or the Finance Ministry. Facts are sacred.”
The NFF chieftain said that for the records, the Federation has never written any story to curry sympathy, as alleged by Dalung. “We have no time for those kind of spins.
Another deliberate misleading statement by the former Minister was the allegation that the NFF leadership has been saying that it can do without government funding. We have never said so; we have only ever stated that the NFF has attained about 60 per cent self-funding from the analysis of our 2017 audited accounts that we published, and that we are determined to drive towards total self-funding which would be a delight to the Government, as it will free resources for other critical sectors.
“It is however interesting that Mr. Dalung now considers the NFF as a self –accounting parastatal, when several times during his tenure he refused to accept such!”
Kwande said that nevertheless, the Super Eagles are focused on putting up a good performance at the AFCON 2019 finals starting in Egypt on Friday. “We are not sure what the intentions of Mr. Dalung are regarding the so-called ‘feelers’ he said he is having about possible unrest in the Super Eagles’ camp. There is nothing of such; it is statements such as those being made by Dalung at such inauspicious times that, but for the absolute discipline and concentration of the Super Eagles, is capable of truncating harmony in the camp.
“The players are focused on the noble assignment of doing Nigeria proud and told representatives of the Nigerian ambassador to Egypt (the representative of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari in that country) as much when they visited the camp some days ago.
“The ‘feelers’ we are getting are all positive, and we are confident the team will do the country proud at the end of the day.”
Nigeria’s U15 future Eagles on Sunday lost their final game of the 2019 International Dream Cup to their European counterparts Romania 2-1 at the Yurtec Stadium in Miyagi.
The game which was played on Sunday morning saw the Future Eagles bag a second consecutive defeat at the U16 tournament in Japan.
Nigeria started the tournament with a 3-1 win over Mexico on 12th June, but lost against the host country Japan on 14th June and against Romania on the last day of the tournament on 16th June.
Future Eagles head coach, Haruna Ilerika made two changes into the line-up against Mexico.
Suleiman Lawal started his first game of the tournament with the team captain, Oluwatobi Adeleke rested, while Ejiofor Chidera started ahead of Damilola Adeyeye.
Super Falcons’ assistant captain and goal-poacher, Asisat Oshoala has declared that the President of Nigeria Football Federation, Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick played a huge role in the team’s confidence-restoring victory over Korea Republic in their second group match of the 8th FIFA Women’s World Cup finals.
Nigeria started off with a loss in their opening match against Norway.
Pinnick, who watched from the stands, came into the team’s dressing room after the match to commend and encourage them despite the loss.
Speaking to thenff.com, Oshoala said Pinnick’s words urging them to do better in the second game fired up the playing body.
“Yeah, that was a really good one for us because when he came in after the first game, he told us we could do better in the second game against Korea Republic.
It really helped us mentally because he made us understand we played a good game and we were just unlucky to have lost the match by three goals to Norway,” said Oshoala, who scored the second goal to seal the victory against the Koreans.
“The message of the NFF President left enough mental energy that will carry the team into the game against France on Monday and beyond.”
She added: “What he told us that day is really helping the team mentally and now we are going into the next game against France knowing that he has confidence in us and we are not going to let him, and the whole of Nigeria, down”.
Nigeria play host nation France on Monday night at the Roazhon Park.
