‘Nigeria women are the most talented team I have played with’ – Ashleigh Plumptre

By Oyediji Oluwaseun Babatunde

Nigeria defender, Ashleigh Plumptre has applauded her teammates after a superb performance at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The Super Falcons survived a tough group with Olympic champions, Canada, co-host Australia, and debutants Republic of Ireland to reach the knockout stages before putting up a gallant display against European champions.

The nine-time African champions lost out 4-2 on penalties to England and kept three clean sheets before bowing out. For the first time in the team’s history, the country went unbeaten after three group games at the showpiece.

“It’s still quite hard to almost sum up everything I felt over that five-week period,” Plumptre told Channels Television.

“I feel it is something that is going to take me a couple of days to let the emotions sink in. I think I have written on my social media recently that everything has to do with those group of women I was competing along with.

“They are the most talented and resilient women I have ever met and I felt like I was only able to perform the way I was able to because of those women I was surrounded by.

“We went into that tournament in a tough group. A lot of people don’t expect us to get the results as we did but for us to have that self-belief goes to show that there is something we are striving towards on a consistent basis now.

“Before joining the team, people talked about African football as just being a very physical game. people neglect the actual technical side. the team is technical and really drilled me in so many ways. that was the challenge for me when I first joined the team especially as a defender against those talented players.

“They made me a better defender playing against them because they are not just fast and quick. The way they communicate with the ball is unreal.”

Three out of four African teams including Nigeria made it to the knockout stage of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time in the continent’s history at the tournament, a feat which Plumptre saw as a result of improved technicalities of the teams.

“With three African teams making it out of the group stage of the Women’s World Cup, we can see that teams are not just pushing games through,” she added.

“The teams had well worked together a game plan to get results against these big teams caused the shock that people keep talking about.”