TFF, fans now wary of Nigeria’s Under-20 girls

Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) expects a tough match when the national U-20 women’s soccer team, Tanzanites, face Nigeria’s Falconets in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifier next month.

The Tanzanites return home today from Abuja, Nigeria where they lost 3-0 to their Nigerian counterparts in the first round, first leg of the African qualifiers in Benin City on Saturday.

“We have to make sure our girls are on their game, and if they do that, they will defy the odds and notch the victory they need to sail through,” the TFF Media and Information officer, Alfred Lucas, said yesterday.

Lucas said he was optimistic two weeks of intensive training and preparations would place the Tanzanian girls in a good stead to beat the Nigerians in the return leg game on October 1 at Chamazi Complex.

According to Lucas, the team will arrive at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) at 3pm aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight and go straight to camp.

The Tanzanites need a win of least four clear goals in the October 1 showdown to cruise into the second round.

They, therefore, must play better than they did in Abuja as the Nigerian squad is a blend of players from the U-17 team that competed in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2016 in Jordan, and some from the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea.

And the Falconets coach, Christopher Danjuma has expressed confidence that his players boast vast experience, which will be too much for the Tanzanian girls to handle.

“We have players who participated in the last FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and few others who are still within the age brackets from the last U-20 World Cup,” Danjuma was quoted as saying from Benin City yesterday.

On Saturday, his team took a giant step towards qualifying for the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup finals in France with an emphatic home win (3-0) against Sebastian Nkoma’s girls.

Nigeria’s Rasheedat Ajibade grabbed a brace and teammate Lilian Tule scored a goal to give their team the victory.

Tule scored Nigeria’s first goal at a packed Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City in the 22nd minute from a free-kick while Ajibade grabbed her second half goals in the 52nd and 57th minutes.

The Tanzanites will face Morocco or Senegal on the weekend of November 3-5 and the return leg in the weekend of November 17-19 if they eliminate Nigeria over two legs.