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Eucharia Uche, the
Head Coach of the Super Falcons, has decided that to open camp next
week for the players who may play in the Women World Cup, Germany 2011,
which begins in June. “A total of 33 players have been invited to camp
which would begin next week in Abuja at a venue yet to be resolved,”
she said. “It is important to start preparing and the earlier our girls
get together, the better it is for our chances at the World Cup.”

Those invited to
camp include the bulk of the players who came back as champions of the
continent from the African Women Championship that was held late last
year and an additional six. “The six new players were picked from the
40 we camped sometime in January for two weeks,” she said. The January
camping was for those who did not have the opportunity to join the
Falcons when they were preparing for the African Women Championship
last year.

This present call
up, which is made up of local and foreign based players, would be
flexible enough for the local players to still feature for their
various clubs. “As far as there are no important matches to be played
internationally, the players would be free to play for their clubs,”
she said. “The club must be able to give us notification in advance and
our camping programme has been devised not to hamper the ladies’
performance at their clubs.”

Strategy for success

Uche said the
priority is to incorporate the other six players, which include Sola
Asifa and Kehinde Idowu with the rest of the squad that went to South
Africa. Therefore, the coach decided that the team will be camped early
so that they better understand each other. “We have a number of
friendly matches lined up for them and we hope we would be able to get
the opportunity to have more international friendly matches like the
one we played with Germany last year,” she said. According to her, one
friendly has been lined up for May 17, with Finland. “I would have
loved it to be at a nearer date but I even appreciate the fact that we
have something like that to look forward to,” she said.

Nigeria has been placed in the same group with Canada, France and
World Champions, Germany, in group A. The event will begin on June 26.
Uche expressed confidence of her team’s chances. The Nigeria Football
Federation has approved the second phase of camping of the team.
Nigeria begins this year’s Women World Cup campaign against France in
Sinsheim, Germany on June 26, 2011.