Izuchukwu OkosiThe Super Falcons will face the Bayana Bayana on Tuesday evening in the reverse leg of the 2024 Olympic Games qualifier in Pretoria.
The nine-time African champions have a 1-0 aggregate lead heading into this fixture after last Friday’s slim win.
Prime Business Africa’s Izuchukwu Okosi reflects on how the first leg turned out and what the pitfalls Waldrum must avoid later today.
1. Bench Oshoala
Randy Waldrum elected to bench current Africa Women’s Footballer of the Year, Asisat Oshoala in the first leg against the current African champions.
Understandably, the former Barcelona Femine star arrived only 24 hours before the game and hadn’t trained sufficiently with the rest of the squad.
There has been no talk of disciplinary issues so hopefully the late arrival of the star player only has to do with challenges with flight arrangements.
Having been with her teammates for 4 days now before today’s clash, Waldrum must unleash Oshoala on the South Africans as her goal-scoring threats will be needed in a game of this magnitude.
2. Tactics
The Super Falcons must employ a strategy that is not easy to predict. South Africa’s star player, Thembo Kgatlana, in an interview with the South African media noted that the Falcons is a time “that don’t play the ball but rely on counters” to punish their opponents.
Such admission in understanding the playing style and tactics that the Falcons can come up with is indicative of the need to find ways to alternate the formations.
3. Defensive approach
Despite leading 1-0 on aggregate through a Rasheedat Ajibade goal, the Super Falcons will do well to avoid playing defensively in this tie especially if they had not doubled the lead on aggregate by scoring first.
A positive approach would be to find the goals early and give the Bayana Bayana some work to do.
Once a goal is achieved, the counter-attacking style can then come to play as that could unsettle the hosts.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
