The quest to defend the Africa Women’s Cup Of Nations (AWCON) for a tenth time begins soon as the Super Falcons of Nigeria look to cross the South Africa’s hurdle and conquer Africa once again to book a spot for the 2023 FIFA World Cup.
Nigeria has been drawn in Group C with South Africa, the team they beat on penalties in the final to win their ninth title four years ago, as well as debutants Burundi and Botswana.
The Super Falcons have since bowed twice against the Banyana Banyana in their last three meetings including the 4-2 defeat on home soil at the Aisha Buhari Cup.
However, from their five meetings at the previous tournaments, the Falcons have won three encounters including the 1-0 win in the semifinal of the 2016 African Women Nations Cup in Cameroun, as well as the final game of the Ghana 2018.
Despite this bitter record, Atletico Madrid and South Africa’s Thembi Kgatlana is confident that Banyana Banyana will dethrone Nigeria as the African champions.
“I think for a number of years Banyana have struggled because they were not able to export players but things are looking positive now,” she told CAF.
However, FC Barcelona and Nigeria international striker Asisat Oshoala has insisted they are unbothered from playing against South Africa in their group opener on July 4 in Rabat.
“We are just basically focused on working on ourselves and we are not so bothered about playing South Africa. When we get to the phase of playing them, we will cross it… Maybe the mindset of our team and theirs may not be the same, but we have the likes of Cameroon, Morocco, and other great teams in Africa to face.”
After becoming the first African woman to win Spain’s golden boot, she is now focused on qualifying her country for the World Cup next year, but she believes it will not be an easy task as the quality of other sides across the continent is improving quickly.
“The qualification was really tough. We had to go through Ghana and Ivory Coast to get to the tournament and now we see the best from each side in Africa.
“You have teams in Africa growing. We lost to South Africa at the Aisha Buhari Cup and we couldn’t even beat some teams like Mali – we struggled to beat them. So it just shows that it’s not going to be easy to win. It used to be for us before.” She told BBC.
The tournament, which was last held in Ghana in 2018, has been expanded from eight to 12 teams and runs from 2-23 July, where the semifinalists will pick Africa’s tickets for the 2023 FIFA World Cup.
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