Izuchukwu OkosiAhead of Friday evening’s 2024 Olympics qualifier against the Bayana Bayana of South Africa, coach of the Super Flacons, Randy Waldrum has insisted that the team’s defeat to the African champions at the 2022 Africa Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and his team’s win over Cameroon in the penultimate round of qualifiers of the Olympics counts for nothing as both teams faceoff .
The American coach faced the media ahead of the crucial match today [Friday] at the MKO Abiola stadium, Abuja.
“I certainly understand the importance of the match. We don’t really look back at what’s happened the last two matches or really the last ten matches with our opposition because what we’ve worked with our players is to be present now with what we have,” Waldrum told reporters.
“If you look back at those two matches, if you look at our roster, it was a completely different roster than we’ve had since the World Cup so I don’t think you can put a lot of weight into that.
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Rinsola Babajide, Deborah Abiodun, Esther Okoronkwo, Jennifer Echegini and Chidinma Okeke are the new entrants in the team that were not part of the last AWCON in Morocco.
“Having said that we certainly respect South Africa, we know what they bring, we know the talent they possess, we know they are a great side but we feel very strongly that we are the team to beat.
“We feel very confident going into the match and at this point we are just excited about tomorrow.”
Today’s game expected to kick off at 5pm is the first of two-legged fixtures with the second leg to be played next midweek.
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.
