Match Preview: Black Queens vs Super Falcons of Nigeria

Esther Owusua Appiah-Fei

October 20, 2021 1:16 PM

The longest-running and oldest rivalry in African Women’s football will be reignited today at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena.

Match Preview: Black Queens vs Super Falcons of Nigeria

On Monday, October 18, coach of the Black Queens, Mercy Tagoe named her preferred squad for the game. It was a 22-man squad with Princella Adubea, Grace Asantewaa, Portia Boakye and Blessing Agomadzi making up the only foreign based players in the squad. The remaining 18, are all players from the Ghana Women’s Premier League.

The Black queens will be expecting to win this tie in order to have a shot at the AWCON finals in Morocco come 2022.

Coach Mercy Tagoe might name the same first eleven she used in the recent Aisha Buhari Cup held in Nigeria a few weeks back. Dynamic trio, Princella, Sonia and Portia will be leading the attack of the Black Queens. Enigmatic defender, Janet Egyir will probably lead the defensive line at the back and Fafali Dhumeasi of Police Ladies may guard the goal post.

In a pre-match interview Mercy Tagoe said she has admonished her squad to be calm when playing against Nigeria. ‘’So far, we are prepared for the game tomorrow. When Nigeria is meeting Ghana, it is like two top Ghana Premier League teams Kotoko and Hearts but that notwithstanding, we are well prepared,” Tagoe-Quarcoo told the GFA website.

Coach Randy Waldrum is however calm as he boasts of a bold squad led by the mercurial Asisat Oshoala paired with Rasheedat Ajibade.

Asisat has been in a fine form registering 9 goals to her name in the Women’s La Liga for Barcelona.

The Super Falcons are currently the defending champions of the AWCON after the last edition in 2018. They haven’t missed the tournament since its inception in 1999 and would be hoping to maintain their momentum.

The Black Queens are also seeking an impressive result in the first leg. The tactics Mercy Tagoe will adopt might be a conservative style considering the attacking prowess of the Nigerians. She might use more counterattacking football to catch the Super Falcons off guard with Adubea and Sonia’s nimble feet.

Running a predictive analysis on this one might be a tough one to call. Ghana are in a good form after beating Cameroon in the Aisha Buhari Cup but South Africa exposed some tactical homework that needed to be done in the team.

The Super Falcons were also quite bland in the Aisha Buhari Cup after they lost to South Africa as well. Asisat however assured in a pre-match conference that they weren’t worried about that, instead, the team looked very competitive and will give their all to win against Ghana.

For us, the Aisha Buhari Cup was a good tournament, and we hope to make the fans happy against Ghana.”

The Africa women’s cup of nations has been scheduled for 2022 and the host nation will be Morocco. The draw for the qualifying round was held in June and a total of 44 countries out of 54 countries entered the qualifying round. Ghana was pit against Nigeria and as the format of the tournament goes, they will play a two-legged match and whoever wins proceeds to the next stage of the competition.

Only 12 teams will qualify for the finals of the AWCON with the host nation gaining an automatic qualification.

Esther Owusua Appiah-Fei