The African champion to slug it out with its Chinese counterpart in a four-nation tournament on Thursday, January 17

By Benprince Ezeh 

SUPER Falcons of Nigeria, the African champions, have an interesting start to their preparations for the 8th FIFA Women’s World Cup finals. They are to meet China’s Women National Team, nicknamed Steel Roses, in the Four Nation Tournament in China on Thursday evening January 17.

Korea Republic and Romania, the other participating teams, will clash in the tournament opening match, from 3pm China time, but 8am in Nigeria, before the Falcons and the Roses take the pitch at Huitang Stadium at 7.35pm China time, which will be 12.35pm in Nigeria.

On Wednesday, January 16, between 4pm-5pm China time, 9am and 10am in Nigeria, the Falcons took to the Wu Hua Olympic Sports Centre of the Huitang Stadium for their first training session since arriving in China.

Faith Michael, a Sweden –based defender, and midfielder Rita Chikwelu, as well as England-based forward Ini-Abasi Umotong and Portugal –based Chinaza Uchendu flew direct from Europe and joined the team in Meizhou city.

China’s Steel Roses is among the most respected teams in women football globally and will certainly afford the nine times African champions a good match. On its part, the Nigerian team is one of only seven teams to have qualified for every edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals since the competition was launched in China in 1991. The others are the women national teams of USA, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Japan.

The winner of Thursday’s encounter will clash with the winner of the Korea Republic/Romania fixture in Sunday’s final, slated to kick off at 7.35pm China, time and 12.35pm Nigeria time. The losers play the third place match starting from 3pm China time, 8am Nigeria time also on Sunday, and at the same Huitang Stadium.

Should the Falcons prevail over the Steel Roses and the Koreans subdue the Romanians, Sunday’s final would be an interesting preview of the FIFA World Cup Group A clash between Nigeria and Korea Republic scheduled for Grenoble on June 12.

BE

– Jan. 16, 2019 @ 16:25 GMT |