Nigeria women U-20 team, Falconets Head Coach, Christopher Danjuma, believes the experience in his team will give them the advantage against Tanzania in their first leg First Round Clash of 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers.
The Falconets will host Tanzania in the first leg of the qualifiers at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium Benin City on Saturday.
The makeup of the current Falconets is a mixture of a few players from the U-17 squad that participated in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2016 in Jordan and some from the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea.
And ahead of Saturday’s qualifier, Danjuma expressed confidence that the experience of talented players in his team will be too much for the Tanzanians to handle,
“We have players who participated in the last FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and few others who are still within the age brackets from the last U-20 World Cup,” Danjuma told CAFonline.com.
“I believe their experience, coupled with the good training we have had in Abuja before coming to Benin City for Saturday’s match would certainly give us the edge against Tanzania.”
Danjuma who once coached the Super Falcons on an interim capacity after replacing Edwin Okon in 2015, stated hoped to secure a healthy first leg advantage ahead of the return leg.
“We have told the girls how important it is for us to win very well on Saturday. The good thing is that Nigeria remains one of the strongest teams at this level and we hope to continue with the same tradition of winning our matches come Saturday.”
Tanzania host the return leg in a fortnight in Dar-es-Salaam with the winner over two legs facing either Morocco or Senegal in the next round.
Two teams will emerge from the African qualifiers to represent the continent at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup scheduled for 7-26 August 2018 in France.
At the last FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea, the Falconets crashed out at the group stage.
