International friendly: Five observations from Super Falcons’ 2-0 loss to Japan

The Tremendous Falcons of Nigeria had been defeated 2-0 by Japan in a pre-World Cup pleasant on Thursday morning.

Second half objectives from Mina Tanaka had been sufficient to increase Nigeria’s winless run in opposition to the Japanese girls’s soccer crew to a few.

5 issues that had been observed within the pleasant encounter held on the Misaki Park Stadium on Thursday.

1) Previous Jersey: American sportswear firm, Nike just lately unveiled new units of jerseys for the Nigeria nationwide groups, rendering the one the Tremendous Falcons wore right now old-fashioned.

The Tremendous Eagles nonetheless, wore the brand new jersey throughout their worldwide pleasant encounter in opposition to the Fennec Foxes of Algeria in September.

Why the Randy Waldrum led women wore an old-fashioned jersey stays unknown.

2) Younger Gamers: The Tremendous Falcons matchday squad for the encounter had 5 members of the 2022 Falconets.

The American tactician included goalkeeper Nkiruka Obidinma , Jumoke Alani, Deborah Abiodun, Esther Onyenezide and Flourish Sebastian in his 19-woman squad.

Out of the aforementioned names, solely Deborah Abiodun was concerned within the recreation.

3) Transitional Play: With lower than ten months to the mundial, the Nigerian women are nonetheless fighting transitioning from protection to assault.

Nigeria wasn’t capable of make correct ahead passes regardless of having quite a few possibilities to trigger havoc to the Japans.

The midfielders had so many unfastened passes within the recreation and that rendered the ahead line ineffective.

4) Skill to win balls: One facet we have to be pleased with is the power to win tackles and interceptions.

Each time the Falcons misplaced the ball, they discovered a approach to forestall Japan from having a free cross to the goalkeeper. Bar the penalty incident, the protection line of the falcons had outing.

5) Lacking Senior Gamers : It is not information that the squad Randy Waldrum paraded was a youthful one.

The likes of Asisat Oshoala, Francisca Ordega, Toni Payne and skipper Onome Ebi weren’t obtainable for the encounter.