Africa's footballers can do 'nice issues' at Paris 2024

Practically three many years on from their male counterparts successful Olympic gold, Nigeria’s girls’s soccer workforce consider it’s their time to stun the world at this 12 months’s Video games in Paris.

Regardless of their outstanding document of getting appeared at each Ladies’s World Cup, the Tremendous Falcons are returning to the Olympics for the primary time in 16 years.

One in every of simply two African representatives, alongside Zambia, Nigeria head to France with confidence excessive.

“We aren’t simply going there to take part, we are able to even win it – nothing is inconceivable,” goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie, who performs her membership soccer within the French capital, instructed BBC Sport Africa.

“We’ve got every little thing it takes to go to the Olympics and get a gold medal. We’ve got a greater workforce now and we are able to do nice issues.”

In contrast to the lads’s Olympic event, which Africa has gained twice by way of Nigeria in 1996 after which Cameroon 4 years later, no girls’s aspect from the continent has ever gone additional than the quarter-finals.

That was the Tremendous Falcons themselves, who achieved the feat in Athens in 2004, dropping to Germany within the final eight.

This time it is going to be Zambia who meet the Germans, the 2016 Olympic gold medallists, in addition to four-time champions the US and Australia in Group B.

Nigeria have additionally been handed a frightening job, taking over reigning world champions Spain, Japan and Brazil, who’ve reached a complete of three Olympic and World Cup finals, in a formidable Group C.

The Tremendous Falcons reached the World Cup knockout stage for less than the third time final 12 months, struggling penalty shootout heartbreak in opposition to eventual runners-up England, however Nnadozie believes the nine-time African champions are enormously improved below American coach Randy Waldrum.

“With the type of soccer we’re enjoying now, we’re going to conquer the world quickly,” she added.

Saving grace

If Nigeria are to create historical past, then Nnadozie might want to proceed her latest wonderful kind.

Since becoming a member of Paris FC in 2020 from serial Nigerian champions Rivers Angels, the shot-stopper has constantly demonstrated her prowess, turning into a power for each membership and nation.

Whereas she shone finally 12 months’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the second she has contested regardless of being solely 23, she was additionally distinctive within the Uefa Ladies’s Champions League in 2023-24, a contest through which she saved 5 penalties in eight video games.

Along with her group-stage penalty save in opposition to Canada finally essential in serving to Nigeria progress on the World Cup, to not point out her three shootout saves within the victorious 2019 African Video games ultimate, Nnadozie clearly has a knack for stopping spot-kicks.

“There are plenty of secrets and techniques behind it,” she smiles, declining to provide an excessive amount of away.

“I exploit some strategies. You consider in your self and it’s additionally about sport studying.”

Former worldwide team-mate Desire Oparanozie, who competed at three Ladies’s World Cups previous to retiring final 12 months, believes the Olympics supply one other likelihood for Nnadozie to point out the world simply how good African goalkeepers may be.

“If she continues to carry out on the highest stage, she will likely be among the many finest goalkeepers on this planet – if not one of the best,” the 30-year-old instructed BBC Sport Africa.

“She’s an outstanding participant. Each sport, she is constant.”

The youngest goalkeeper to maintain a clear sheet on the Ladies’s World Cup, which she achieved aged 18 in 2019, Nnadozie’s dependability noticed her topped one of the best goalkeeper in final season’s French prime flight as Paris FC completed third.

“I really feel very comfortable successful awards as a result of I’ve been working exhausting. However the first objective is for my workforce to win, not a person trophy.”

‘Beacon of hope’

Practically twenty years have handed since Nigeria’s girls final appeared within the Olympic soccer event.

With a storied legacy in African soccer and a practice of nurturing gifted gamers, their return affords a recent alternative for a brand new era wanting to excel and make up for misplaced time.

It may additionally allow some African stars to make decisive strikes of their profession, whether or not they be enjoying for Nigeria or Zambia.

Returning for his or her second straight finals, the Zambian squad is spearheaded by Barbra Banda, who starred at Tokyo 2020, and Racheal Kundananji, who turned the world’s most expensive player when becoming a member of Banda in the US earlier this 12 months.

“We’ve got so many African gamers overseas who’re doing nicely,” mentioned Nnadozie, reflecting on the progress of girls’s soccer on the continent.

“We’re like a beacon of hope to these in Africa.”

But whereas girls’s soccer could also be progressing at a speedy tempo on the continent, the latest resolution to delay this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) to 2025 has brought on concern.

Given the Covid-enforced cancellation of the 2020 version, it means there may have been only one Wafcon, the 2022 version, in practically seven years by the point the 2025 finals get below manner.

“It isn’t proper,” mentioned Oparanozie. “I believe it will put us 10 steps behind, and it isn’t good for ladies’s soccer in Africa.

“On this current time and age, we should not be speaking about suspending the Ladies’s Afcon. We could also be rising, however the price at which we’re rising is just not speedy sufficient.”

The dearth of aggressive worldwide soccer means rivals on the continent are prone to be watching occasions in Paris with envy.

“It was an important factor for Nigeria to qualify for the Olympics after 16 years,” mentioned Nnadozie.

“I have been dreaming of enjoying within the Olympics and never simply qualifying, however making a mark to make the nation proud.”

Her stage awaits.