Nigeria’s female national team, Super Falcons will be in Texas, USA in June to participate at an invitational competition that will involve the host nation and 40 other teams, megasportsarena.com reports.
Aside Nigeria and USA, the competition, which will have a record 41 countries in attendance, will also feature Jamaica and Portugal, with matches scheduled to hold from June 8 to 17 at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas.
The nine-time champions of the continent will tackle world champions will use the invitational contest as build-up for their defence of the African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON 2022), with many high-profile matches expected to properly test the Falcons.
It also promises to be another useful source of exposure for the Falcons, now under an American coach, Randy Waldrum, who recently won the Turkish Women’s Cup and now await the draw for the AWCON 2022 qualifiers, which will be conducted on Monday.
A statement by the communications department of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) disclosed at length: “The tournament is presented by AT&T 5G. Matches will be played at the BBVA Stadium in Houston and at the brand-new, $240million Q2 Stadium in Austin built by the newest club in the Major League Soccer, Austin FC.
“Both cities are in the State of Texas and the clash between the Super Falcons and the US Women A team will be the first-ever football match at the state-of-the-art Q2. The glamour tournament, which also held in 2017 and 2018, will run between 10th – 16th June.
“(It) will see the Super Falcons clashing with their Jamaican counterparts in Houston on the 10th before taking on Portugal three days later at the same BBVA Stadium. Their last match is against the USA squad, four-time winners of the FIFA World Cup and four-time winners of the Olympic football gold, at the Q2 Stadium on 16th June.
“Randy Waldrum, who presently coaches Nigeria’s Women A team, is an American who also coached the Trinidad and Tobago Women’s National Team 2014-2016, and led the Super Falcons to three wins out of three in the Turkish Women’s Invitational Tournament in Antalya in February.
“The USA is the only one of the four teams in the Summer Series that will compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but Nigeria has remained the dominant force in Africa since qualifying for the first edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 30 years ago and winning the first edition of the Women AFCON in 1998.
“Once the teams arrive in Houston, and for the USA and Nigeria, in Austin, all the players and staffs will operate inside highly controlled environments at the host hotels. The staging trainings and the matches will fall under the comprehensive U.S. Soccer Return to Play Protocols and Guidelines and in accordance with the CONCACAF Return to Play Protocols.
“Everyone entering the controlled environment will be tested for COVID-19 before traveling, upon arrival and periodically thereafter. The teams will not begin full team training until the results of all arrival tests are confirmed.”
One of the competition’s potentially explosive matches could be between Nigeria and USA, who have clashed five times previously, with four at the FIFA Women’s World Cup and one in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament.
The match against Nigeria will mark the first time the USA has ever faced the Super Falcons outside of a world championship and it will be just the third-ever friendly against an African country, with the previous two coming against South Africa.
Both teams last met at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada in 2015, with the Americans winning 1-0, courtesy of was Abby Wambach’s last goal at the Mundial, but both coaches are now taking of a different kettle of fish heading into June’s fixtures.
USA’s coach, Vlatko Andonovski said: “In these COVID times, we’re grateful that U.S. Soccer has been able to organize a schedule of games for us to prepare for the Olympics and getting these three during the Summer Series against teams we don’t play very often will be important in helping us make the final decisions on the Olympic Team.”
Waldrum added: “The Summer Series is an interesting event and the teams featuring are of very high quality. It is a great prospect for us as we continue to build ahead of the qualifying games for next year’s Women Africa Cup of Nations.”
