Moses Bako doubt Falconets chances in Canada
Chairman of Bako FC Moses Bako has said the Falconets may only be lucky to avoid recording their worst ever outing at the 2014 Fifa U20 Women’s World Cup in Canada due to poor preparation and federation’s administrative crisis.
The Falconets will face Korea, Mexico and England in Group C of the competition to be staged between August 5-24.
Bako said the dissolution of NFF boards including that of the women league could dampen the team’s chances of making an impact at the tournament.
Bako also blamed the dwindling performance of the women national teams over a decade on the pitiable attention offered to the teams during their preparations for international competitions.
“The major area of concern is that we don’t know if Falconets will get the needed logistics and motivational package for the World Cup. As we have no board that will oversee women football after the dissolution of the various boards under the NFF,” Bako told Goal.
“My fear on the team succeeding is because of our poor preparation. They needed to have a training tour of Europe. For me playing against fellow African team, not even Ghana who is our neighbour. It’s a different ball game playing African teams like us. The team needs grade A friendly matches and not playing against age-grade boys.
“Going to Canada, I fear the weather maybe a challenge for our girls. With less than 30 days, our problem with the Federation is the neglect of women national teams.
“Little attention or technical support to women as much that of the men. That’s the major reason why the dominance of Nigeria women team has dropped in last six years, he continued.
“Well, looking at the on-going World Cup in Brazil, we have seen that football tournament is not about how many individual stars, but commitment and determination of the players to play as a unit and ready to write their names in the history books remains to be seen.
“If they play as a team – knowing getting their call-ups were on merit and not seeing as birth right, then we may go far. I’m hopeful, we could by luck get out of the group stage, if we do we may struggle to cope other stage, if we don’t take the right players and have a good backup, we could crash early. Imagine, why the Golden Eaglets won the World Cup in UAE, it was because of the quality and strong bench they had.
“As for Coach Dedevbo, he is a good coach and took Nigeria twice to the World Cup. I think if he picks the right legs and get the players to play like family, they can do the country proud.
“I believe it will be tough for us playing against good footballing nations like Mexico, England, Korea. I see our Group C as Group of Death because all the teams have good record in women.
“Another issue is the concentration of players from the same club in the national teams because of the advantage of the club coaches in charge. I think it’s better when choice of players for the national teams are based on even selection of players from various teams in the women league tiers,” he concluded.
Peter Dedevbo’s team will begin their Fifa U20 Women’s World Cup campaign against Mexico on August 6 at the Moncton Stadium in Moncton, Canada.
