Women’s World Cup: Nigeria Out, Lucky England In On Penalties
BY VICTOR OSOWOCHI – Hard working but sadly unlucky on the day. The above description summarises the lots of hard-fighting Super Falcons of Nigeria as they gallantly bowed out of the ongoing 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
No thanks to their poor shootouts, the Super Falcons will be on the next flight home as they lost 2-4 on penalties to lucky England who are reaching the tournament’s quarter finals for the fifth time.
Despite being outplayed by the Nigerians over 120 minutes of the goalless encounter, the Lionesses were impressive from the spot as they Super Falcons 4-2 in a penalty shootout on Monday morning.
The English Ladies were quite lucky as Nigeria twice rattled the crossbar during the opening 47 minutes of the match played in Brisbane, Australia.
On their part, the Coach Sarina Wiegman-tutored side did threaten occasionally at the other end though. In the process, they were initially awarded a penalty kick in the first half after Rasheedat Ajibade was adjudged by the referee to have fouled Rachel Daly. However, a VAR review had the penalty canceled.
Late in the highly competitive match, another VAR check resulted in the European champions being reduced to 10 players in the 87th minute. Lauren James was shown a straight red card for violent conduct after standing on the backside of Michelle Alozie as the Nigeria player lay on the ground.
With her sending off, James, who is England’s leading scorer, having netted three goals during the group stage – will be suspended when the Lionesses face either Colombia or Jamaica in the last eight on Saturday.
The Lionesses refused to bulge holding on to eventually beat Coach Randy Waldrum’s side on penalties in spite of their numerical disadvantage.
Georgia Stanway fired wide from England’s first spot-kick, but Nigeria’s Desire Oparanozie then also missed the target. Beth England slammed a powerful shot down the middle to put the Lionesses in front before Alozie skied high over the bar.
Daly’s spot-kick was brilliant and put England in control. Rasheedat Ajibade and Christy Ucheibe were both on target for Nigeria but it was England who prevailed after Alex Greenwood and Chloe Kelly found the net.
