U-20 World Cup: Lessons from Falconets’ defeat

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By Kayode Ketefe

There are two major reasons why the Nigeria’s U-20 female team, Super Falconets, lost the prestigious U-20 World Cup despite going so close and having initially raised all hopes of eventual Nigerian glory. The first reason is self-caused while the second is an exogenous factor, as it were, beyond the players’ control.

On the first reason, the team’s coach himself, Peter Dedevbo, gave some insight when he attributed the loss, to what he called “tactical indiscipline” on the part of the players.

On the way to the final, the Nigerian players impressed everyone with their skills evinced in pacy audacious dribbling, nimble footwork, supple athleticism, and stunning goals.

Players like Asisat Oshoala, nicknamed Superzee (who emerged both the Most Valuable Player and lead goal scorer) Courtney Dike (Sub-one-minute goal specialist) and Sunday Uchechi (also sub-one minute Super sub scorer) all dazzled global audience with their amazing talents.

Then in the final, Nigerians watched with amazement as the team kept bungling one glorious chance after another, with nothing tangible to show for the near total domination of the game, especially in the first half. 

Many were wondering what could have happened to the free-scoring girls who have just metamorphosed into profligacy experts at the critical moments.

Well, the Achilles heel of this great team is at last exposed. There were some tactical deficiencies that had hitherto been hidden which could only be exposed against a team of Germany’s depth and quality.

I would also like to add that the immense pressure placed on the girls’ young shoulders was also contributory to this perceived tactical naiveté. It is noteworthy that the government and some other stakeholders promised them this and ahead the final match.

The President, no, not the president of the Nigerian Football Federation, but the President of Nigeria himself, Goodluck Jonathan, spoke with them on the eve of the final match. This innocuous move meant to motivate the girls seemed to do contrary – it put the girls under great pressure to win.

 
The second reason why the world cup did not land in Abuja has to do with an issue which FIFA will do well to address in order to save the beautiful game. It has to do with the quality of refereeing. The goal scored by Oshoala that was disallowed by the Canadian referee, Carol Anne Chénard, for being an offside in the 85th minute was nothing of the sort - it was wrongly disallowed, meaning in truth that the Falconets actually won within the regulation time.

I have watched that goal again and again and I dare anybody with a fair knowledge of the offside rules to go and watch the clips of the match on FIFA.COM to see if it was not actually a genuine goal. Apart from this, other spurious calls were made by the referee and these were also obvious in the video. (On a lighter side, the referee Carol Anne Chénard, seems to portend bad omen for Nigeria, she was also the referee that officiated in the final match of FIFA U-20 World Cup, Germany 2010, where Nigeria lost the cup to the same Germany by 2-0 score line).

It would be recalled that the problem of poor decision of referees undermining the game football is real and the evidence is damning and ought not to be trivialized We can all remember Frank Lampard's superb goal against Germany in the Round of 16 in the South Africa 2010 World Cup which everyone saw to have crossed the line and landed behind German keeper, Manuel Neuer. 

Yet it was disallowed by Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda. If that goal had been allowed, the result would most probably have been different from the 4-1 victory claimed by the Germans.

From Nigeria’s perspective, when Nduka Ugbade led a team of youngsters to the maiden U-16 World Cup triumph in China in 1985, the competition, then being sponsored by Kodak, was known as Kodak/FIFA U-16 World Tournament.

Immediately the unexpected happened as Nigerian won the inaugural edition, Kodak withdrew its sponsorship.

 
Reason? Probably because Nigeria was not considered as a heavy consumer of Kodak products and the sponsors reckoned it a loss for an outsider like Nigeria to emerge beneficiaries of its sponsorship deal. But two years later in Canada, when the competition was being sponsored by another multinational giant, JVC, Nigerian Golden Eaglets still went the all way to the final, leaving in their trails as casualties, countries like Boliva Australia and Italy.

 
Nigeria last opponents were the defunct USSR. Within the first few minutes, Russia had scored! Nigerian fighting spirit came to the fore and Philip Osondu levelled the score.

 
Then, after intense ding-dong affair, Oladimeji Lawal collected the ball, dribbled past three opponents into the USSR goalmouth and was just about to unleash a rocket into the Russians’ net when the Brazilian Referee, Jose Ramiz Wright, blew his whistle to stop the move. 

Nobody has been able to explain why the referee took that decision till today, what everybody however knows is that Nigeria lost that cup as the USSR went ahead to win through penalty shootouts.

A similar scenario occurred in 2005 during the final match of the FIFA U-20 World Championship in Holland. FIFA certainly has to do more in the area of fine-tuning quality of decisions by match officials to restore dignity and credibility to the game of football.