Izuchukwu Okosi
Amid the furore of Asisiat Oshoala being stripped of the captaincy of the women national team, African champions, Super Falcons of Nigeria will today face Canada’s national women’s team in a high profile international two-legged friendlies at the BC Place in Vancouver.
The games are honour of Christine Sinclair, who led the Canadian women to an Olympic football gold medal win at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in August 2021.
Nigeria are also using the games to prepare for the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations in Morocco in July.
Today’s encounter which kicks off at 7.30pm Nigerian time will be the fourth time both teams will square off against each other, having meet thrice previously with honours evenly shared after a win, a draw, and a loss.
The first meeting between the two continental giants saw the Super Falcons come from a two-goal deficit to seal a pulsating 3-3 draw at the 1995 Women World Cup in Sweden.
Perpetual Nkwocha’s 84th-minute strike handed Nigeria a 1-0 win over the North Americans at the 2011 World Cup in their second clash.
Canada exerted their pound of flesh in 2019 during a friendly, claiming a 2-1 victory over the reigning African champions.
According to FIFA latest ranking released March 25, 2022, Canada is way up the ladder by occupying the 6th place in the world, while Nigeria’s Super Falcons retained their top spot in Africa moving from the 41st position to 39th at world level.
Falcons today will hope to upset the apples cart for the North American giants whose star girl and Captain Christine Sinclair boasts of 188 caps for her country.
Meanwhile, the second leg will played at the Starlight stadium in Langford on Monday April 11, 2022.
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.
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