April 29, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s Super Falcons were drawn against strong continental rivals, Bayana Bayana of South Africa in the TotalEnergies 2022 African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) draw, which took place on Friday, at the Mohamed VI Complex in Rabat, Morocco.
Burundi and Botswana are the other Group C teams and will compete against the Nigerian and South African ladies at the continental competition.
Meanwhile, Morocco, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Uganda were all drawn in Group A to compete in the preliminary stages of the tournament. In Group B, Cameroon, Zambia, Tunisia and Togo will slug it out in a group with former finalists and one of the best-ranked African female teams.
The top two teams in each group will automatically qualify for the competition’s quarterfinals, while the teams with the best third-placed places will fill the remaining two slots.
The tournament’s top two finalists will qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup next year. This will incentivise the female players of all the countries involved to give their bests so that they can represent their Nations at the World Cup.
THEWILL recalls that Nigeria recently played two friendly games against Olympic gold champions Canada, losing 2-0 in one and holding the Canadians to a 2-2 tie in the other.
South Africa, who will be the greatest opponent in the group for the 9-time African champions, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in a friendly match. That aside, the ladies have already demonstrated their ability to defeat Nigeria by stopping the Super Falcons from lifting the maiden Aisha Buhari Cup with a 4-2 result.
It will therefore do Randy Waldrum well to prepare the Nigerian ladies most adequately, so as to avoid a repeat of that embarrassing scenario against South Africa.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
