Justin Madugu poised to bring back Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title to Nigeria

By Oyediji Oluwaseun Babatunde

After sealing qualification for the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), the stand-in coach of the Nigeria senior women’s national team, Justin Madugu is shifting his focus on winning the next WAFCON title.

Madugu took charge of the team after the expiration of the contract of Randy Waldrum who took the team to a Round of 16 finish at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

The 49-year-old tactician has won three out of the four games in the Olympics and WAFCON Qualifiers as the team sealed a spot at Morocco 2024.

“It is you know the higher you go and the more you meet tougher teams,” Madugu told NigeriaFootball.ng

“You will need to be more clinical. You may not be creating more chances against your opposition so the opportunities that you have, you have to take them and not be wasteful.

“It’s a good thing that we are able to create more chances in a situation where we are not able to create chances in a game, we should become more worried. They are creating the opportunities but conversion is the problem. It’s an area that we will also work on and we are encouraging our players so that they work on these too.”

Nigeria’s charges to win their tenth WAFCON title have been faced with challenges from other African countries like holders, South Africa, Morocco, and recently Zambia.

Despite the challenges, Madugu sees the Super Falcons as the best women’s football national team in Africa.

“In spite of the recent development in women’s football, we still believe in ourselves. We remain the best, as far as Africa is concerned,” he continued

“Our goal is just to go for the trophy that is just our only way to make Nigerians happy. We must put up a different show that we bring back the trophy to make everybody happy and proud.”

Morocco beat the nine-time African champions on penalties after a 1-1 draw in regulation time in the semi-final of WAFCON 2022 before a 1-0 loss to Zambia in the third-place match.

“The last game we played against Morocco in the last tournament, they were a valid lesson that we got from the match which will help us in the event of meeting Morocco again.

“We will know how to handle those situations and prepare the minds of the prayer players mentally and physically no matter the antics that will come our way. We will be prepared to handle those kind of situations.”

The Super Falcons have won nine out of 12 WAFCON titles with Equatorial Guinea winning two while South Africa has an African title.