Mexico Tourney Will Be A Good Preparation For World Cup — Super Falcons Boss, Waldrum
January 26, 2023 8:07 am
Super Falcons head coach, Randy Waldrum is pleased with the invitation extended to his team to be part of the Revelation Cup in Mexico.
The former African champions will join hosts Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica in the four-nation invitational tournament next month.
The competition will be part of the team’s preparations for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup to be co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.
“We are very excited for the invitation to the Revelation Cup. As an American, I know Mexico and Costa Rica very well, and Colombia is also a big rival. It is an honor to play these matches,” Waldrum told the official website of the Mexico Football Federation.
“The fans will have the chance to watch National Teams they are not used to, and that helps women’s football growth too.
“The Revelation Cup is an opportunity to watch other team’s style. We can learn from Concacaf and South American teams.
“Women’s football must continue to grow; we need to have more of these tournaments.
“The way football is played around the world gives our players the opportunity to meet another style of football.”
The competition will be in a round robin and double header format.
The Super Falcons’ first match of the tournament is against South American runners-up Colombia, on Wednesday, February 15 before further games against Mexico Saturday, Febuary 18 and Costa Rica Tuesday, Feburary 21, 2023.
Waldrum picks Ebi, Oshoala, 21 others for Revelation Cup in Mexico
Posted By: The NFF on: January 26, 2023
Head Coach Randy Waldrum has called up 23 players of Nigeria’s Super Falcons for next month’s Revelation Cup Tournament to be staged in Leon, Mexico City, among them Captain Onome Ebi, Spain-based forward Asisat Oshoala and long-time number one goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie.
Hosts Mexico, Nigeria, Costa Rica and Colombia are the participating teams at the tournament in the State of Guanajuato, with matches between 15th – 21st February, and with the objective of preparing the contestants for the 9th FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in Australia and New Zealand this summer.
Nine -time African champions Nigeria will play their first game of the tournament against hosts Mexico starting at 4pm Mexico time (10pm Nigeria time) on Wednesday, 15th February, three hours after the opening match between Costa Rica and Colombia.
On Saturday, 18th February, the Falcons will be up against Colombia at 1pm Mexico time (7pm Nigeria time), before Costa Rica square up against the host nation.
Costa Rica will be Nigeria’s last opponents, both teams locking horns as from 5pm Mexico time (11pm Nigeria time) on Tuesday 21st February, before hosts Mexico and Colombia draw the curtain on the four-nation tourney.
Nigeria’s delegation to the tournament will depart the country’s shores on Saturday, 11th February.
The Super Falcons will tackle co-hosts Australia, Olympic champions Canada and debutants Republic of Ireland at what will be the biggest FIFA Women’s World Cup finals ever, this summer in Australia and New Zealand.
CheapHomes1: naptu2 is following oshoala the same way 5 is following 6.
anyway, why she no de fit score like this for nigeria?
You mean that the person that has been highest goal scorer and second highest goal scorer at Nations Cup, one of only 2 women to score 4 goals in a single Nations Cup match and one of only 2 African women to score in 2 World Cups does not score for Nigeria? Wonderful.
That's a lie! You in particular, you care about women's football. That's why you took the time and effort to click on the thread and comment. You would have ignored it and kept scrolling if you didn't care.
Thank you for caring and please keep commenting on women's football threads.
Violence Won’t Affect Elections In South-East – Abaribe
The Senator called on the South-East governors to come together and find solution to the issue of unrest in the region.
The Senator representing Abia South District, Enyinnaya Abaribe has assured Nigerians that the unrest in the South-East geopolitical zone of the country will not affect the 2023 elections in the zone.
Abaribe also called on the five governors in the South-East to come together and find a lasting solution to the unrest in the zone rather than trying to solve it individually.
“For some time we have not heard that all the governors have met. They are the chief security officers of their states,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday. “When they come together and take a stand everyone will follow, but each of them seems to want to do their own thing separately and it is not working because this is a regional issue.”
“For example if you pursue them in Imo they extend themselves to Anambra, if you push them in Anambra they run to Ebonyi, you push them in Ebonyi they run to Enugu.
“So every one of us must come together and work and work to bring peace to Igboland. But this will not affect the election, I tell you. You will see that the elections in the South-East will be free, will be fair and with BVAS the results will show who the people trust or not,” Abaribe added.
With just weeks to the February 25 presidential election, many offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the South-East have been razed by rampaging hoodlums. Scores of security agents have also been killed by gunmen, fuelling doubts about the safety of the general elections.
Abaribe blamed the insecurity in the South-East on external forces who collaborate with some locals to in a bid to ensure that people don’t exercise their franchise freely and fairly.
The lawmaker said he visited the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanuin the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the IPOB leader told him there is nothing like Monday sit-at-home in the five states in the zone — Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu.
“All that is going on is that some merchants of violence and destruction have taken over and commit crimes and when they do that, they now say it is this group or that group,” the lawmaker said.
Vicky Lopez's father is Spanish and her mother was Nigerian. She said that she wants to play for the Super Falcons in order to honour her late mother, but the Nigerian authorities have not approached her. She represented Spain in last year's Under 17 World Cup and helped them to win the title (she scored two late goals to help them beat Japan in the quarter final). However, she says that she still wants to play for Nigeria at senior level.
1) Spanish-Nigerian teenage sensation, Vicky Lopez becomes the youngest player to score for Barcelona in the league since the club became professional. Check out her touches in the highlights video. She has the potential to become one of the best players in the world.
2) Asisat Oshoala becomes the 4th highest goal scorer in Barcelona's history.
3) Barcelona has won 50 straight matches in the league.
Three Nigerians played in this match, Asisat Oshoala and Vicky Lopez for Barcelona and Rita Chikwelu for Levante Las Planas.
Oshoala’s First Hat Trick of the Season Inspires Barca Femeni to Record Feat
SPORT | 3 mins ago
Super Falcons Asisat Oshoala’s scored her first hat trick of the season yesterday as Barcelona Femeni hammered Levante Las Planas 7-0 to set world record of 50 straight league wins in the Spanish Primera Liga F.
According to nigeriafootball.ng, Barcelona had won its previous 49 league games and knew that a win at home against Las Planas will make it the first football club (men or women) to win 50 straight league games.
The Catalan side started the game in the best possible manner as Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic opened the scoring for the host in the seventh minute from Fridolina Rolfo’s assist.
In the 25th minute, Crnogorcevic set up Oshoala for the Blaugrana’s second goal and Crnogorcevic scored her second goal of the game to lift Jonatan Giraldez’s to a 3-0 lead four minutes before halftime.
The 2020/2021 UEFA Women’s Champions League winners started the second half in the same imperious goal-scoring form as Vicky Lopez increased its lead to four within the first three minutes after the restart.
Five-time African Footballer of the year, Oshoala scored two more goals in the 56th and 63rd minutes to complete her hat-trick before Marion Caldentey completed the rout with the seventh goal to propel Barcelona to a big win.
Oshoala lasted the entire duration of the game increased her goal tally to 10 in the league this season with an assist. With 95 goals, the Nigerian becomes the fourth all time highest goalscoring in the club’s history.
On the other hand, Rita Chikwelu also saw the full 90 minutes for Las Planas and received a yellow card in the 27th minute
FC Barcelona top the league log with a maximum of 45 points after 15 games and will attempt to extend their winning streak in their next game against Monday Gift’s Granadilla Tenerife on January 29.
The BBC's Peter Okwoche spoke to INEC's chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu and asked him questions about rumours that the elections will be postponed due to violence in parts of the country, transmission of election results, irregularities in the voters register, allegations of being partial, etc. Here are his answers
Peter Okwoche: How are preparations right now?
Mahmood Yakubu: Preparations are on top gear.
Election in Nigeria is a huge undertaking. The total number of registered voters for the 2023 general election is 93 million. That is 16.7 more registered voters in Nigeria than the other 14 countries in West Africa put together.
So in other words, an election in Nigeria is like conducting elections for the whole of West Africa and beyond.
So it's huge.
Peter Okwoche: A member of your team, Abdulaziz Zuru who was representing you at an event, said there's a possibility that these elections might be postponed because of the insecurity around the country. Let's hear it from you now, is that the case? Is that a possibilty or what?
Mahmood Yakubu: Yes there's insecurity, but insecurity is perennial. But we are committed to conducting the elections as scheduled. And immediately after that statement was made, the commission made an issued an official statement.
So, to answer your question directly, the 2023 general elections will not be postponed. The commission is not even contemplating adjustment to the timetable. We are good to go for these elections.
Peter Okwoche: Even in places where your facilities have been destroyed, your personnel have been attacked, some have been killed?
Mahmood Yakubu: We have identified those locations where facilities have been attacked and we have assured Nigerians that we can recover from those attacks.
This year in particular, we have had attacks in a number of places, 11, but these are attacks from which we can recover, so I can't see that as an obstacle to conduct of elections nationwide. We are going to proceed as scheduled.
Peter Okwoche: There have also been complaints about irregularities during voter registration, double registration, underage registration, how are you tackling these? Is it something that you've seen? Is it widespread?
Mahmood Yakubu: Well, we have a robust system of cleaning up the voters register, using what we call Automated Biometric Identification System. Under the continuous voter registrations that we did for over a period of one year, some 12 million Nigerians were registered, but when we applied our business rules to clean up the data, we dropped 2.7 million out of them. Among them the invalid registrations. The invalid registrants may be those who are not qualified by age, because the minimum age for registration is 18 in Nigeria, or those who are not Nigerian citizens, or deceased persons whose names are on the register, or multiple registrants.
So, we are reasonably confident that we have cleaned up the register.
However, cleaning up the register is a continuous process.
But I want to say that the voters register in Nigeria is a national treasure. It is simply the largest database of citizens in the country and the largest database of citizens in Africa.
So we'll continue to clean up the voters register, but the core of the register is solid, where I'm happy with the register.
Peter Okwoche: Major candidates in the elections are already complaining. We had one say the other week that you don't have the capability to transmit the votes once they have voted, to transmit the results electronically to the national database.
Mahmood Yakubu: Well, I don't know who said so, but look at what we have done. We did the pilot in August 2020, at Nasarawa in central Nigeria, when we conducted a bye-election in state constituency and since then we piloted the transmission of results in 105 constituencies nationwide, including major governorship elections. We did it in Anambra, we did it in Ekiti, we did it in Osun, we also did it in the Federal Capital Territory.
Now some of them may be small elections in the Nigerian context, but the state with the least number of registered voters in places where we transmitted election results in Ekiti, is Ekiti. But Ekiti has more registered voters than The Gambia and Cape Verde put together.
So we are happy with the pilot that we have conducted and we are reasonably confident in the strength of the processes.
Peter Okwoche: Even in rural areas?
Mahmood Yakubu: The machine on election day doesn't rely on Internet to accredit voters. It works offline.
Now when it comes to transmission of results that's where it needs network, but if there's no network in the immediate vicinity, the scanned image of the polling unit level results, which is taken using the BIVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System), will be transmitted as soon as the staff move from the polling unit to the collation centres. And we have been working with the major telecom companies in Nigeria and we are satisfied that the number of blind spots can be addressed in the country. And the number of blind spots where you have no network is really small.
Peter Okwoche: A lot of people say the elections in 2015 were freer than the elections in 2019. You oversaw the one in 2019 and not 2015 and they say that's because you're close buddies with the government, with the ruling party. How close are you to this APC-led government?
Mahmood Yakubu: That's just an allegation. People always say so of all electoral commissions, including electoral commissions in Nigeria and other countries as well, the usual accusations.
But look at the kind of elections we have been conducting of late. Different political parties have won different elections and citizens believe that the votes are counting and will continue to count and they are confident in the process.
So my assurance to the citizens is that we'll continue to do what is necessary to ensure that we protect the integrity of the process.
As I said, our allegiance is to the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not to any political party or any political actor.
The Nigerian elections will go ahead on 25th February 2023 as planned, despite rumours of postponements due to insecurity in parts of the country. @okwoche sat down with The Head of @inecnigeria Professor Mahmood Yakubu. pic.twitter.com/zH7lllVDB7
Sports › Re: Waldrum Picks Ebi, Oshoala, 21 Others For Revelation Cup In Mexico by naptu2(op): 6:04pm On Jan 26, 2023
