Nine-time African champions, Nigeria’s Super Falcons, will arrive in Douala, Cameroon on Wednesday for the first leg of their 2024 Olympic Games qualifier against the Indomitable Lionesses.
The third round, first leg qualifying fixture is slated for the Stade de la Reunification in Douala on Friday evening.
The second leg will take place at the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja next Monday.
Super Falcons Coach Randy Waldrum has selected 21 players, who will all be on the trip to Douala, and then fly down to Abuja on Sunday morning for the return leg against the Lionesses, which will be held at the MKO Abiola National Stadium on Monday evening.
Waldrum and his assistants will lead the full squad on a training session at the main bowl of MKO Abiola National Stadium on Wednesday evening before the delegation’s departure to Douala. The team will have the official training at the Stade de la Reunification in Douala on Thursday evening.
Nineteen players were already in the team’s camp in Abuja as of Tuesday evening. Toni Payne and Uchenna Kanu were expected at the team camp, with Kanu scheduled to turn up on Tuesday night and Payne expected on Wednesday morning.
Super Falcons are in search of a ticket to another appearance at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament after 16 years.
They last participated at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament in China in 2008 when they lost 1-0 to the Democratic Republic of Korea and Germany in Shenyang, and 1-3 to Brazil in Beijing to crash out at the group stage.
The route to London 2012 was blocked by Cameroon’s Indomitable Lionesses, who won a penalty shoot-out in Yaounde after both teams finished the two legs in a stalemate. Equatorial Guinea made the journey to Rio 2016 impossible and Ivory Coast bumped Nigeria in the race to a place in Tokyo.
After eliminating Ethiopia in the second round of the series, the Super Falcons must now cross the Cameroonian hurdle to reach the final round of the African qualification series and throw down the gauntlet to whichever opposition appears at that stage in two months.
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