Unheralded when they left the country three weeks ago, players of the U-20 women’s team which represented Nigeria in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Germany will return to a hero’s welcome despite losing the final game to the host team. After blazing the trail to become the first African team to play in the finals, the team, coached by Adat Egan, fell 2-0 to Germany in the final game largely due to tactical errors and a penchant for failing to convert their chances.

Germany’s tactic was quite simple; lob the ball to their attackers and wait for the knock down and it worked perfectly as the first goal came through that route. The tournament’s adidas Golden Ball (best player)and Golden Boot winner( highest goals scorer), Alexandra Popp flicked on a header to Dzsenifer Marozsan, who took a touch and passed back to Popp who guided a close range finish beyond the grasp of Alaba Jonathan, in goal for the Falconets. That was the first chance that the German girls got and they took it. The Nigerian women fought back through efforts from Ebere Orji in the 26th minute which Almuth Schult had to parry away from the tight angle from which the shot was struck.

Another combination between Desire Oparanozie and Helen Ukaonu, the left back, gave Oparanozie a good chance but her curling shot from the edge of the box narrowly missed the goal.

Making us proud

His efforts not withstanding, coach Egan needs to explain why he started Gloria Ofoegbu, a player who had not tasted action throughout the tournament, in place of the accomplished Amarachi Okoronkwo; and why he waited until the 57th minute before replacing Ofoegbu. The only explanation that will make any sense would be if Okoronkwo was carrying an injury. Ebere Orji, expected to carry Nigeria’s attacking hopes could not do much as she was moved from her favourite left flank to the middle and that may have disrupted the chemistry of the team.

The killer blow came in added time through an own goal. After an error from Okoronkwo gifted the hosts a corner kick, and two more such kicks later, Kulig took a powerful shot that came off the post and hit Osinachi Ohale on the side before crossing the line. It was game over for the Falconets.

The defeat can be blamed on the paucity of goals as Nigeria went into the final with possibly the least goals ever scored to qualify for that level, scoring six goals and conceding five in the tourney.

Godday Esezobor, Chairman of Female Football Club Owners Association and proprietor of Makbet Queens, a women’s football club based in Lagos, said the Falconets have done Nigeria proud, although coach Egan was wrong to have gambled on Ofoegbu:

“The ladies have made all of us proud. They should hold their heads high. However, mention must be made of the decision to bring in Ofoegbu in place of Okoronkwo who played in virtually all the matches. In women’s football you don’t take that kind of risk. Normally, what happens is that barring injuries and things like expulsion, you finish a tournament with the same team you started it with. This is because the players would have struck a rhythm, which new injections to the squad would disrupt,” Esezobor said.

But that is not taking anything away from this team, which literally sneaked out of the country, were abandoned by the leader of the Nigerian delegation, and got paid peanuts compared to the millions lavished on our men.

Most commentators agree that the Falconets have made Nigerians proud. Their countrymen all over the world will justifiably praise their achievement.

Popping into history

Germany’s Alexandra Popp worked her way into the history books by scoring 10 goals in six matches. In the same vein, she was crowned the best player of the championship. Germany also became the first team that will host and win the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

For the Falconets, it was a record setting tournament. When they beat defending champions, the United States of America in the quarter-final, they became the first African women football team at any level, to qualify for the semi-final of any FIFA Women’s World Cup. Playing in the final had raised the bar even further, and has also helped in redeeming Nigeria’s poor image in football after the debacle in South Africa.

Nigeria took a major step towards advancing to the second round of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup with a 2-1 victory over Japan in Augsburg. The Falconets, who had drawn England 1-1 to open Group C, now have four points and are sure to be in a good position no matter what happens in the later match between England and Mexico..

The Japanese drew Mexico 3-3 in a thrilling come-from-behind encounter in the first round of matches, but there was not enough drama for them on Saturday as Nigeria made Amarachi Okoronkwo and Desire Oparanozie’s early goals stand-up despite Mana Iwabuchi’s second half consolation.

The west Africans scored the opener in just the 6th minute after Ebere Orji’s tricky cross caused a miscommunication between Shoko Yamada and goalkeeper Erina Yamane. With a race to the ball Okoronkwo proved the fastest to touch in her first goal of the finals.
The discouraging defensive lapse was multiplied just minutes later from what was just Nigeria’s second shot on goal. As have all of the Falconet’s goals in the tournament, it was created by Orji, in this case bursting with menace down the left flank. And again it was the same combination that struck against England, with Oparanozie finishing coolly at the back post.

Japan were then two goals down for the second match on the trot, and just as they did against the Mexicans, they showed great spirit in their fight-back. Before half-time the impressive Iwabuchi created a chance - but Nigeria goalkeeper Alaba Jonathan denied Natsuki Kishikawa - and spurned one of her own when she dwelled on the ball when all alone in the area in injury time.

With Japan pushing and the Nigerians comfortable in attack, the match came to life in the second period, with Iwabuchi and Kishikawa going close in the early going, and the Falconets showing how dangerous they could be as Esther Sunday played a quick one-two with Orji through the heart of the Japanese defence. Iwabuchi was the next star to shine, and she found the net thanks to her clever speed of thought and being quickest to take advantage of some shaky goalkeeping moments in the 62nd minute.

But the Japanese sputtered on the rocks of Sunday and Orji, who continued to dominate proceedings through the last half hour, and the best chance to score in the final moments fell to Oparanozie at the end of a lightning-fast African counterattack..

Nigeria will next face Mexico on Wednesday in Bochum, while Japan take on England at the same time in Bielefeld.

People are talking and saying that What Turai did was mere childsplay that we are about to see the mother of all First Ladies in 9ja ! READ ON: Shocking Revelations await

Article:

It used to be that our government officials, their wives, aides, and hangers-on were prolific in the exercise of poor judgment and the making of horrible choices that always exacted a terrible price from the rest of us. When I read newspaper reports last week that Mrs. Patience Jonathan had travelled to Dubai and Beirut “on a private visit”, I concluded that our nightmare had just been made worse. It means that these fellas ruining our lives in Abuja and the state capitals have now graduated from the congenital exercise of poor judgment that afflicts all of them, to an outright assassination of judgment.

Let’s dispense first with some of the half-witted commentaries of the ponces of power that have been running riot on the Internet. Dame (the title maniacs have quietly introduced the ‘Dame’ thing in the media) Patience Jonathan, we are told, has the right to travel anywhere privately as a free citizen of Nigeria bla bla bla and more bla. Fine. The emergency contractor-defenders of the civil rights of the First Lady should please remind her not to use the presidential jet for the Abuja-Lagos leg of such private trips next time. Once the Nigerian taxpayer foots the bill of any part of the First Lady’s private trips, it is our responsibility to make our basketmouths to start dey leak again - apologies to Fela.

Of all the destinations that Patience Jonathan could have visited on this horribly ill-timed and unbelievably ill reflected “private trip”, it had to be Dubai, an increasingly popular money laundering route/destination for Nigerian politicians, government officials, and their courier-wives and concubines. And this is a Patience Jonathan who is still waiting for her day in court for corruption charges bordering on money laundering (by the way, her EFCC indictment file must not disappear)! Pray, when your neighbours suspect you of stealing the dogs in the neighbourhood for 404 purposes, must you be heard boasting of your affection for puppies in the market?

It gets worse.

Our friend, Elder Chief Stakeholder James Ibori, was apprehended by Interpol in Dubai. One week later, Patience Jonathan is on the plane to Dubai. Is there, by any chance, any of the handlers of the Jonathans who was thinking correctly?

The couple has a retinue of aides and advisers responsible for the packaging of their every move. We need to know which of them thought it was a great idea for the Patience Jonathan to head out to Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori’s embrace in Dubai at this most inauspicious of times.

Ibori’s embrace? Am I perhaps stretching metaphor and speculation? You bet I am! I am more than happy to help the Jonathans ruin the little goodwill that ushered them into Aso Rock since squandering that goodwill appears to be their first order of business. And that is precisely what Nigerians are doing online. It’s an orgy of wild speculations out there. What does Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori know?

What is the nature of the beans he is threatening to spill to the Dubai and British authorities that may have warranted presidential pacification? Does he perhaps have more embarrassing details on that little matter of Patience Jonathan’s money laundering wahala? Who knows what the Yar’Adua cabal revealed to him about the Jonathans when he played godfather over Aso Rock.

There is also considerable Internet chatter about madam having gone on a jewelry shopping spree. All the chatter about going to pacify Elder Chief Stakeholder Ibori or waste our money on jewelry is deserved. That is what you get when you have a Presidency that has been so perennially clueless in the management of public perception. Segun Adeniyi and his crew perpetually mismanaged the public perception of the Yar’Aduas. They were so incompetent that they couldn’t even tell coherent lies to the Nigerian people. Ima Niboro and his crew don carry dem own come. Not one of them suggested to their Oga and his Madam that this woolly-headed trip couldn’t have come at a worse time?

Beyond Internet chatter about the ill-advised trip to Dubai, it does appear that we, first lady-weary Nigerians, will once again have to contend with the spectre of that unconstitutional assault on our sensibilities. Patience Jonathan is already showing all the symptoms of a looming no break no jam first ladyship. There is always a competition to surpass the last occupant of that constitutionally non-existent office in overbearing showiness, gra-gra, and ostentation.

What is wrong with Nigerian men? Why do they find it so difficult to tell their ever ambitious madams that our Constitution does not recognise their predilection for transforming oga’s political office into a divahood launching pad? Every time someone gets selected to office, they make a heck of a noise about not tolerating the first lady aberration, only to get to the bedroom and sing a different tune to madam. After Maryam Babangida, Miriam Abacha, Stella Obasanjo, and Turai Yar’Adua, Nigerians are more than ready for a return to the first ladyless days of Shehu Shagari and Muhammadu Buhari. Deopka Goodluck Jonathan must therefore be advised to exercise no patience with Patience on this matter.

By Pius Adesanmmi

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday made a stop in Saudi Arabia to thank the King Abdullah led government for the first class medical attention it rendered the late Nigerian President Musa Yar’Adua while he was hospitalized at the Kind Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Islamic nation.

A report in Thisday, a Nigerian newspaper said the President and some members of his entourage including Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (SAN) left France on Tuesday morning at the conclusion of the 25th Africa-France Summit in Nice for Nigeria and made a stop in Riyadh before returning to Abuja on Tuesday night.

We could not reach presidential spokesman, Mr. Ima Niboro for further details on the stopover before going to press..

The President is expected to preside over the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday..