Bankole Olowookere harps on football culture for Nigeria to excel at World Cup

By Oyediji Oluwaseun Babatunde

Head coach of the U-17 women’s national team, Bankole Olowookere insists having a football culture would help the various national teams compete better on the world stage.

His comments come days after the ouster of country’s senior women’s national team at the group stage of the Paris 2024 Olympics following successive defeats in three matches.

The Super Falcons have qualified for all nine editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with their best performance being a quarter-final finish at the 1999 tournament.

Compared with Spain which won the World Cup only during their third appearance at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Spanish football culture and philosophy cut across all national teams (men or women) which is bringing titles at all ends.

And Olowookere feels having a similar philosophy and football culture will be of great deal for Nigerian football, especially at the national team level.

“Talking about football tactics and philosophy, it will take time to achieve results,” Olowookere told Brila FM.

“It is very possible to develop a football culture. If you compare me to a U-17 coach, you talk about transition that can suggest something better for the nation. We are trying to work on consistency and continuity. It is a gradual process.

“All of us need to put our heads together and unite as coaches to share common ideas so that by the time the players are graduating from one cadre to the next, that coaching understanding will be there, and it will be easy for the Super Falcons coaches.”

While referencing Randy Waldrum’s philosophy with the Super Falcons, Olowookere believes that the best way to defend is to attack, which will bring desired results.

“Coaches have different ways of approaching games,” he continued.

“I think the approach that the coach adopted especially against Spain, we worked very hard in the first half and the second half before that mistake leading to the goal.

“The best way to defend is to attack which is part of my philosophy. I am not a coach who will adopt defensive tactics because you can’t defend for 90 minutes because there is the possibility of making mistakes.

“Sometimes, when a team packs the bus in a defensive pattern, they can be lucky, but it is 50/50. I think that’s the coach’s philosophy, y and it only worked for him at the World Cup.”

The Naija Ratels coach in the Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) Premiership guided the Flamingos to a third-place finish at the 2022 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in India.

“At the U-17 level, you can see what we did at the World Cup. We never gave them breathing space. In our first game against Germany, we were all out on them and scored,” he added.

“That was our plan throughout the World Cup. We couldn’t score against Colombia and paid for it. It depends on the coach and his kind of philosophy and imbibe it on the players. In our third-place match against Germany, we attacked them and scored three goals.

“If we had not scored three goals, they wouldn’t be able to equalize. The same thing against the United States of America. We scored (USA) first before they equalized and went into penalties.

“It’s not all about the environment but the coaches. Coaches should be able to impact the young ones on what they have learned in coaching courses. It’s a matter of time. Some of them have transited from U-17 to U-20.

“It’s a gradual process and not a day thing. We just need to project our transition. I think that’s what we need for now. The likes of Gift Monday, Tosin Demehin are coming up from the age grade. They need time to grow into the system.”