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Nigeria’s
Super Falcons yesterday continued their march to re-capture the title
they lost in 2008 to Equatorial Guinea. The Falcons faced the Twiga
Stars of Tanzania with a chance to cement top spot in the group. And it
was another great performance from Perpetua Nkwocha as she confirmed
the Nigerian team’s superiority and inched closer to achieving her
target of scoring 15 goals in the championship.

The match was
largely played in the half of the Twig Stars, who tried to defend their
goal with two banks of five players but Nigeria was on the front foot
as early as the first minute when Francisca Ordega was caught offside
marginally. A minute later, Ordega went on another rampaging run down
the left flank and earned a corner kick.

Two minutes later,
Nkwocha crossed from the right with Ebere Orji lurking to score. It
caused the goalkeeper to panic and palm the ball across the goal. A
header from Ordega followed but it went wide.

The Falcons did not
play with a lot of imagination and wide players were squeezing into the
middle with Nkwocha dropping off the front to join a congested midfield.

Nkwocha’s sixth and seventh goals

But they got the
first goal in the 10th minute, when a cross by Ulunma Jerome was
squeezed into goal from a tight angle to give the Falcons the lead.
That was the sixth goal for master poacher, Nkwocha.

The match then
sparked to life and in the 21st minute, Jerome’s cross cum shot hit the
cross bar and out of play. The Tanzanian team were now really working
hard to deny the Falcons any more scoring chances.

Nonetheless,
Nkwocha scored the second goal of the match and her seventh in the 32nd
minute when a defensive error involving Twiga Stars’ captain Sophie
Mwaskili presented the Nigerian striker with a sight on goal – and she
duly converted the chance.

The Twiga Stars tried to cut the lead with long range shots but Precious Dede easily gathered the efforts.

The first half
should have ended with a third goal for the Falcons but Ordega was in
an offside position when she took the ball off Orji’s toes after she
had dribbled the keeper and was ready to score.

The second half was
very disjointed with the Stars raising their game through Aisha Sada,
who was changing from the right to the left flanks throughout the game.

The half witnessed
another barrage of shots from distance with Sada hitting the cross bar
in the 55th minute and Dede getting injured in the process of making
the save. Gloria Akpa came on for Jerome and Desire Oparanozie came in
for Nkwocha. The changes disrupted the Falcons game but the team
finally scored the third goal in the 82nd minute when a spilled shot by
the Tanzanian keeper was tapped in by Oparanozie – it was her first
goal of the championship.

In yesterday’s other match, South Africa walloped the Malian team
4-0 to join the Falcons in the semi-finals. Their likely opponents will
be defending champions, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, who have four
points each in Group B.