Nigeria's Game

I fell in love with the Super Falcons during the 2008 Olympics, watching them slug out the ultimate group-of-death: Germany, Brazil, Nigeria and North Korea. None of the games in that tournament were as exciting as those Nigeria played in this group.

Nevertheless, Nigeria didn't make it past that stage. Similarly, last night's performance against Germany will likely go down as one of the best in the tournament. It had everything: skill, stamina, speed and controversy.

Basically, the Super Falcons have so much pace, and play so aggressively that it was as if Germany's formation had been put though a blender. Nigeria is that fearsome team which does not allow others to play their game. The first twenty minutes in Nigeria's game are particularly chaotic. This does not mean they are without tactic: quite the opposite. It's the mobile, fluid tactic of a game constantly adjusting itself to the other team's strategies.

It was hard to reconcile last night's performance with the match against France: It seems likely they underestimated les Bleus, or is it that France read Nigeria better than did Germany?

It might also be possible that unlike last night's game, the match with France was actually refereed. Poor refereeing absolutely favors Nigeria - thus some the match's controversy.

In spite of their tremendous effort, Nigeria had scarcely any shots at goal. I asked former FC Indiana coach Shek Borkowsky (via Twitter) why Germany won, even though it was clearly a brutal game for them. (His comments are edited, to translate tweets into sentences.)

The way Nigeria performed yesterday no other team in this competition would beat them. Nigeria's aggression and commitment level was three times of that they showed against France. Still, Germany limited Nigeria to one shot on goal.  It was the most combative match, ever.

I asked him why, given the intensity of Nigeria's performance which genuinely seemed to rattle Germany, the host team still came out on top. His reply:

Because Laudher and Kulig are so good at what they do. Nigeria's strikers rarely have midfield support, and with limited options available for them, Bartusiak and Krahn's job is easier. The only time Germany had problems in their 3rd is when they gave away the ball. 

Despite poor passing and strong Nigeria performance, Germany was never going to lose that match. That's how strong they are.  You can kick Germany, you can foul them, you can take them off their game and still they win. Frightening!     [FF @ShekBorkowsky]

Call me an optimist, but the USWNT has some of Germany's mental toughness - the ability to keep it together under pressure, which comes from experience. (But do we have the depth of talent - I mean, Alexandra Popp and Inka Grings - two of the world's best players - came off Germany's bench!)

I am really excited to see France and Germany play each other: Olympique Lyon beat Potsdam in this year's European club championship, and there are ten of these club champions on France's squad (Germany's squad is more diverse than this). France are playing like a finely tuned unit (is someone trying to create a Barça-like synergy with the national team for Lyon?). We'll see that organization and talent tested as these two go head to head, playing for placement. Not exactly the highest stakes, but hopefully it will be enough for us to take the full measure of France's depth and mettle.

I've held my comments regarding the mess in the Super Falcons camp for last. It's important to foreground the players in all this, to divorce (as much as is possible) these women from the Nigerian FA, and their homophobic coach. It was awful hearing boos and whistles - at the start of the match this was clearly directed at the Nigerian officials. It is hard imagine how these athletes felt, taking to the field in that atmosphere. It didn't feel like support to me.

How do we properly support these women? Because to single out Uche as if she alone were the problem is just wrong. She was hired by the FA, and thrown on the front line to represent a "new look" for the team. It is also wrong to single out her homophobia as somehow an anomaly: - as if it looked nothing like, say the German FA's behavior - according to a story published in The Local,

In 1995, the DFB prohibited national team players from participating inthe European Gay and Lesbian Sport Championships in Frankfurt. Several players had expressed interest in participating, but none wanted to risk being dropped from the national squad before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.("Women's Football Confronts Gay Taboos")

What I dread about the way the Nigeria story is being handled: it is too easy for this turn into a smug celebration of European liberalism as if Europe's own attitudes, histories and practices had nothing to do with any of this.  Let's remember - the original ban against women's involvement in football (which was adopted in Germany) came from the English FA, and was very much a response to the (accurate) perception that there were a lot of "unladylike" women on the pitch, having a great time together, in front of large crowds of people who thought this was a great thing. If a game like last night's - an epic match played before a packed stadium of people deeply involved with the drama unfolding before them - if something like that feels rare, it's not because of anything the Nigerian FA did a few months ago, but because of the systemic suppression of women's involvement with such spectacles since at least 1921.

We'd do well to keep this long view in mind, otherwise it's as if the Super Falcon's elimination from the World Cup has somehow solved the problem. Which, of course, it hasn't.

2011 World Cup: France & Nigeria

Well, I'm not in Germany. I know this because even though the country I'm in (France) has a good team in the World Cup, and even though that team was on the cover of more than a few of the weekend papers and Sunday magazines, no one cares that they scored the tournament's first goal in a win over Nigeria.

For those who don't know yet, France won with a sweet team goal: Necib sent the ball into box where Thiney moved it quickly to Delie, who controlled and scored. Lanky and graceful, Delie reminds me a little of Berbatov.

Nigeria came out at a hundred and ten miles an hour, but were generally much stronger on defense than on attack. Desire Oparanozie broke past Sonia Bompastor and France's back line with a first class run only to blow her chance by sending the ball wide under pressure from GK Sapowitz. What is Oparanozie? 18? Yes, she is.

In a pre-match interview, Nigeria manager Uche declared she replaced her "old" players with "younger" players. I can't help but wonder what she means by "old," as one of the women she left off the squad was Cynthia Uwak, who is all of 24. (In talking about replacing "old" players with young players, she is papering over her purge of lesbian players and/or players who couldn't truck with her prayer sessions, etc.)

Anyway, when Oparanozie sent that ball wide, I couldn't help but think: a) I don't see Uwak doing that and b) if Uwak was on the field with her, Oparanozie might have had another option.

We'll see how this "pray the gay away" coaching strategy works out for Nigeria. I hardly know what to say, as I used to be a Super Falcons fan, and now I have to root against them, because I can't stomach success under these conditions. Basically, the whole story has made it nearly impossible to watch the team's matches and really "see" their game - I'm having trouble getting outside the framework of my anger.

Maybe Eurosport feels the same way. Because during halftime the network played video highlights, with no commentary. Maybe I missed something. Maybe the television I was watching somehow filtered all but the ambient noise of the match in those replays. But given the level of pre-match commentary, I perhaps should be grateful. Sometimes nothing IS better than something: Before the game started, we were given shots of the players stretching on the field. A commentator (female, very pretty) said "Oh my, they are not so flexible, are they?" Then there was an AWFUL video publicizing the team, in which the players were lip syncing to some French pop song. (I promise to find a copy of this!)

They looked so intensely uncomfortable. I have never seen anything quite so painful.

At least they were wearing clothes.

France played like France. The big difference between this team and the men is that we actually have expectations of them. (The men are famous for lowering our expectations of them.) I thought the women were so French they played like Arsenal in the attacking half. They were better at connecting than converting.

We'll see. I'm glad they won this one. They had to, to have any chance of getting out of this group. 

I have only this to say about Germany: a few bloggers noted that Germany seemed rattled when they gave up a goal. This is how Brazil got them in the Olympics. You have to break them early - and then exploit that right away. It's true of course in general (score! score again!).

Germany, Nigeria and Brazil were in the same group in the 2008 Olympics - of all of Germany's opponents in that tournament,  Nigeria and Brazil played the best games against Germany of all of their opponents, and were heavy on the attack. (If you are really hard core: my old match reports are to your left.)

The Depression of a Super Falcons Fan

Cary Leibowitz, Misery Pennants (1989)

By the end of the summer, I was in a dark place in relation to the men's game: unable to care about who wins what international tournament or league's season, because who cares what a bunch of spoiled brats do in the service of hyper-leveraged clubs that look more and more like individuated versions of the real estate bubble. You know what I did after the World Cup? I gave away my television.

I thought following the women's game would reconnect me with the pleasures of fandom, but I am afraid it's having the opposite effect. At the moment I am demoralized by the media's apathy regarding the fact that the Nigerian national team coach conducted an anti-lesbian purge. (She gave a talk about this at a Nigerian conference on women's football, this was reported in Nigerian media, but has yet to raise interest from the football community at large.)

FIFA recently featured the team on the front page for its website for the 2011 Women's World Cup. In that article the coach made statements regarding the "fitness" of notable players absent from her squad. Who can believe such statements? Isn't it wrong for FIFA to feature that kind of discourse from someone who has so obviously discriminated against her athletes? What does "fitness" mean in that context? This kind of "press" is not just irresponsible, it actually collaborates with the original discrimination. (Latest from Nigera: The team just failed to qualify for the All-Africa tournament. This does not bode well for the summer.)

Why isn't overt discrimination news when it's practiced in the women's game? Why aren't we talking about the impact of homophobia on the women's game? Perhaps because it would require sports media to confront its own homophobia.

Anti-homophobia activists in football seem primarily concerned with the men's game. One could argue, however, that homophobia has a much more global impact on the women's game. I mean "global" here in every sense - internationally, and holistically - from the lowest levels of the game to its highest, as the media and FIFA maintain a scrupulously polite silence about the fact that some of the most gifted athletes in the game identify as lesbian - some have girlfriends, some resist gender normativity in body and attitude (muscled, boyish, mannish, aggro, full of bravado), and these women have huge impacts on fans through what they achieve and represent.

For every story we encounter about a female athlete's marriage, or a baby born within a straight couple, there are more stories regarding momentous events in the lives of gay players that are not represented, because the mainstream media considers such stories unrepresentable. This is old news in women's sports - fans are fluent in reading the silence, the biographical editing which mediates their relationships to the players they cheer from the stands. NEVER seen a reference to a player's life beyond, say, her experiences playing as a kid with the boys? Well...  A gay man in the sports world lives with a powerful, awful pressure demanding that he stay in the closet. A lesbian can live freely and relatively openly and we can trust the media do the closeting for her, on "our" behalf.

This leaves the marketing of women's soccer in the US particularly ineffective - claustrophobic and "old" or childish (and so "old" in its conceptualization of the consumer's relationship to childhood). It has yet to rise about the closeted mentality of another age. I just don't get it.

My mood is perhaps lifted by recent excellent coverage of homophobia in men's sports - most recently via the coming out of Rick Welts, owner of the Phoenix Suns. This is such a good story, a real chance to educate people.

The sexism of the world of sports is related to its homophobia; the feminism of women's sports spaces is related to the queerness of those space - which, given the sexism and homophopia of mainstream sports spaces, leaves little room for representing the specificity of the athletes in women's sports at all.

High time for change all around.

Cary Leibowitz,  Homo State (1989)

Notes on Nigerian Football Scandals & the Amazing Falconets

Dr. Amos Amadu

Today Naija Football 247 reposted a Sahara Reporters story about journalist Olukayode Thomas's struggle with the Nigerial football/sporting executive Amos Adamu (FIFA and CAF executive board member). "How a David Defeated Goliath in a Nigerian Court" is well worth reading, as is a more recent story on the same site about the place of that scandal in FIFA's delay of the 2018 World Cup bid ("Nigeria's Amos Adamu Offers to Sell FIFA Hosting Rights for 500,000").

As most sports sections report on the corruption in the Nigerian football association, few seem to notice that in the midst of this story, Nigeria's U20 women's squad became the first African team to play in a World Cup championship final match. After beating the always strong Japan at the group stage, and knocking out the U.S. in the quarter finals (highlights of Nigeria's defeat of the US), the Falconets took down Columbia (another great story of the tournament) to reach the championship match. There, they lost (as so many do) to Germany 2-0 (highlights of that game here).

The story of Thomas's fight with Adamu (who has sued the Guardian journalist for libel) provides an interesting context for understanding the administrative chaos that surrounds the sport in Nigeria.

Nigeria's 2010 U20 Women's Squad, "The Falconets"

It is hard to imagine how the women's program survives at all - and they don't just survive. This summer, they played very smart football - the kind of well-organized, conservative game associated with perrenial powerhouses like the U.S. and Germany. Nigeria's women's teams are always stacked with talent and play well against much more well-funded and administratively stable sides.

And the more I read about what's going on in Nigeria's sporting community, the more I want to know about these players, and the men and women who support them. These are the unheralded superstars of the sport - for they do this with no hope of riches and international fame.

(And sorry for disappearing - am finishing a non-football related project!)

Regime Change: Africa in the World Cup Final

Fifa's match reporters seem surprised that Nigeria made it to the U20 Women's World Cup finals. They write:

Few...would have predicted that Nigeria, representatives of an African continent which had never before sampled life beyond the quarter-finals of any FIFA Women’s World Cup or Olympic Games, would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Sunday’s final in Bielefeld is therefore full of intrigue and fascination.

I must be one of the few. If you watched the women's games in the last Olympics, you might remember that Nigeria drew the toughest group - playing Germany, Brazil, and North Korea in the first round. The Super Falcons gave all three teams a tough time - they played some of the most entertaining attacking football in the tournament.  Watching Nigeria play Brazil, you couldn't help but think you were watching the future of the women's game - neither squad enjoys the institutional support they deserve from their football federations, and they compete well against teams lionized for not only the talent on the field, but for the organizational commitment behind the players. Brazil and Nigeria's senior squads would be contenders for next year's World Cup championship were they supported at even a quarter of the level awarded to their male counterparts. (Boy am I tired of writing sentences like that one.)  Both have fans in their home countries, and both play in styles that reflect the ethos associated with South American and African teams, but which seems lost in the men's game these days.

The Nigerians have not scored the outrageous number of goals that other squads have managed in some of the tournament's ill-matched confrontations.  But the Germans, who have 18 goals in their column, played the woeful French and Costa Rican squads in round one and rolled over the S. Korean squad, with 5 goals to their 1. And the Nigerians have kept the number of goals scored against them low - at 4, they have given up one fewer than Germany.  Furthermore, the Nigerians beat the US youth squad - symbolically, I can't think of a better result for the international game.

In the wonderfully titled article "Our Women Rule the World," Nigerian journalist Ikeddy Isiguzo writes,

USA is the most dominant country in global female football and its U-20 team has never failed to reach the semi-final since the competition started in 2002.

It was the defending champion, and had garnered two wins, a third and fourth place in the four previous competitions  no other country has a record close to this.

Another article, on Nigeria's semifinal win over Columbia is headlined "What Our Men Couldn't Do."  Ghana getting past Uruguay would have been historic. But Nigeria's women beating USA? Or Germany? That would be a ground-breaking victory for not just Nigeria and indeed for Africa's women's teams, but for all women's teams that aren't USA or Germany.  When so few teams play in finals so often, it makes victory for the rest feel impossible - it makes the whole system feel rigged.  It furthermore feeds the defeatist attitude that defines the approach of the vast majority of national FAs (which think: women's football sucks, women don't play well, nobody cares about it, and they will lose anyway).

So, yes, Germany should be favored in this match. But I think anyone who sees the Falconets as unlikely finalists or accidental contenders has not been following the women's game very closely. And I guess that includes FIFA itself.

Olympic Women's Soccer: Profligacy, Parsimony, Politics (reflections on the Super Falcons' performance)

FIFA has a pretty decent summary of the Brazil/Nigeria match in their site, and there is a great blow-by-blow from kickoffnigeria.com, so I'm not going to give the detailed account I gave for the Super Falcon's battle against Germany (see below). Watching today's match (amazing - don't let that 3-1 score fool you, it was an entertaining match start to finish), I found myself mulling over the way the word "profligacy" was used in FIFA's summary of that last game againt Germany:

The African champions dominated much of this match and had enough chances to win a few games, but their profligacy in front of goal - which had already been in evidence in their 1-0 defeat to Korea DPR - once again proved their undoing.

Warning: I am an English Professor by trade. The author meant something like "wasted goal scoring opportunity," a situation that writers about football find themselves needing to write over and over again, and so one's vocabulary stretches along with that striker's foot, and like that prodigal daughter who discards the perfect pass and misses the wide open net, sometimes the writer, too, goes wide of the mark. All that aside, profligacy is an odd word choice. Its first meaning is:

1. Licentious or dissolute behaviour; debauchery; spec. (in later use) sexual promiscuity. [Oxford English Dictionary]

Given the centuries-old racist and sexist traditions that inform representations of African women, it is not a word I would choose. I am sure the FIFA writer didn't mean to draw from this (the primary) meaning of the word. Better to use the word in a statement like "Manchester United's behavior off the pitch is a good example of the profligate lifestyle of contemporary footballers."

Even the secondary meanings for "profligacy" feel not quite right as a description of how the Super Falcons play:

2. a. Reckless extravagance, prodigality; (also) a wasteful or extravagant act. 2. b. Lack of moderation, excess; great abundance, profusion. [Again, this is from the O.E.D.]

On this point, my objection isn't political, but technical. In footballing terms, I would say "profligacy" is more apropos of the striker who strikes too soon, of the player who sends the ball too far down the pitch. (In which case, one might tag Brazil for its profligacy in the first match against Germany in which we saw lots of long balls just thrown away.)

If the Super Falcons suffered against these teams - the very best teams in the very toughest group in this tournament - it was, I think, more properly because they were too conservative. Which is perhaps counterintuitive, because the Super Falcons play with a lot of style and imagination. But style isn't the same thing as wastefulness. If that were true, Argentina and Brazil would have the weakest records in football. And England would have qualified for Euro 2008.

A team of goal scorers and a lame back line may be accused of profligacy, in which case we can turn to Tottenham as a fine example. But the Nigerian women's team plays more like Arsenal, who would never be called "profligate" with the parsimonious Wenger at the helm. We all know the purse strings are kept tight chez les Gunners. And then we have the style of play: lots of jaw dropping short little passes right up to the goal. Spectacular to watch. But, as we all know, eventually the odds go against these genius little moves up the field. Every pass is a pass that can go wrong or be interfered with. Every moment you hold onto the ball is a moment a defender has to catch you. The problem, here, then, is not "letting go" but holding on.

I am wondering if, in the case of the Nigerian women's team, this isn't about confidence, and the opportunities a team has to play together. You didn't see Nigeria, for example, making a whole lot of medium or long passes into space - Germany's Stegemann scored off of exactly that kind of optimism ("I know she's on her way, and will be there by the time the ball gets there"), and Marta and Cristiane work off of exactly this kind of confidence in each other ("Marta - draw those three defenders off me, and then cross me the ball!").

Nigeria's problem isn't profligacy - it's the opposite. A fear of letting the ball go. And with so much riding on them - the only African women's football team at the Olympics (and, therefore, the only all black team on the tournament's rosters), who can blame them. Want to talk about parsimony? Let's talk about FIFA's ambivalent support of African football over history, and then let's talk about FIFA's even more ambivalent support of women's football over history, and, well, marry those two histories et voila! You have the special burden of being the only African women's team allowed to take the world stage. Who can blame them for playing a somewhat skeptical game.

Well, there you have it, my reading of one sentence in a FIFA match report. This is what happens when a feminist English professor becomes a fan of the football.

Before I sign off for the day, let me just say some things about today's game. The Super Falcons have super fans! You could hear them shouting, cheering, and singing alongside their own brass & drums band from the start to the finish of the match. And while plainly Cristiane is player of the match, I'd like to give a shout out to Nigeria's Faith Ikidi who got in some technically perfect tackles and was just a hornet in both of the games I was lucky enough to see. She's one of the defenders of the tournament in my eyes.

Cristiane's bicycle kick goal brought tears to my eyes. So amazing, so perfect - she was surrounded by defenders and still got a controlling touch and just sent it over her own body and into the net. I was rooting for Nigeria, but I'm a fan of the beautiful game, and I don't know what's more gorgeous & inspirational than a goal like that. (Note the Nigerian player who nearly takes Cristiane's foot in her face!)

So - here it is [I leave the broken link up, to signal the depressing withdrawal of images of women playing from the internet - with no mass media circulation, with no money riding on the rebroadcasting of women's games, the Olympics Police censoring of fan-produced highlights services the suppression of the women's game more effectively than it protects a fucking Olympics copyright. Sorry for the language, but it makes me very angry that I can't show you that goal. And you can watch three thousand less interesting goals from the EPL whenever you want.]:

Olympic Women's Soccer: A Day in the Life of the Super Falcons (Nigeria/Germany)

First: Big thanks to Şenol, for recording this game and getting me a copy - no women's football was aired in France today, as far as I can tell!

As I tune in (about 20 minutes into the match), it looks like a normal day in the life of a team playing Germany. Prinz collects the ball at the top of the box, fires a shot with 2 defenders on her, and it goes just over the top. Sigh. Another day at the office.

But, actually, this game is more interesting than that. Germany looks big, strong, and, well, scary. But Nigeria is playing with a lot of energy and creativity: they are just as capable of making havoc. Both teams are really attacking the ball (pictured here, Pingor and Uwak going at it). There is no "watching" the game from the pitch. And they seem to be surprising each other.

Just as I am pouring myself a glass of wine, Nigerian defender Ikidi sends a high lob down the field, it's picked up on the wing and, with a gorgeous flick, the ball slips forward to Super Falcons star Cynthia Uwak (Like a few of her Nigerian teammates, Uwak plays in Sweden, for the Falkopings. She was twice FIFA African woman footballer). Uwak starts on a promising run, and is brought down with a trip, for which Bresonik is given a yellow card. This seems to set the tone for a bit. Nigerian player Ebi gets a card too, just after Garefrekes peels the ball away from her feet. Ebi chases her down, tries to contain her, and trips her up. Laudehr takes Uwak down again a few minutes later. Both teams are working hard to try to prevent the other from playing their game.

It strikes me that in some ways, the Germans seem more unsettled by Uwak than they were against any of the Brazilians. Uwak is really fast on the ball, and has an amazing touch. She is, arguably, the most dangerous player on the pitch in this game (other contenders, Prinz and Nwocha). That said, the Nigerian defenders seem to struggle against Germany's strength and size advantage - there are moments when neither seems to quite know how to play the other.

Anyway, like Uwak, Faith Ikidi also plays for a Swedeish team - Linkopings - and is working her ass off – if the ball makes it down the wing, it’s not on her side of the pitch. She has a nice way of clipping the ball out from players barreling up the field, she has great positioning and a fantastic rapport with those working in her neighborhood. So most of the action looks like the above, but is interrupted by German Smisek getting the ball on the wing, and sending it to the goal, where it is easily picked up by keeper Precious Dede (best name in the Olympics?). Throughout the bit of the first half I saw, Dede looked confident, and was not really challenged.

The first half closes with an exciting give-and-go exchange between Nigeria's Michael and Uwak which ends with Michael surgically threading the ball through three defenders. More bodies start piling in to shut down Uwak who is playing like the ball is velcroed to her feet. Angerer comes out of her goal to remind us why she's the best in the game. She just throws herself over ball before you know what’s happening. It’s surprising, brilliant. Done with total confidence and even a bit of elegance. Drama!

It occurs to me, as I watch this German television broadcast, that the announcers stop calling the game when Nigeria has the ball. (They go totally silent.) I suspect they don't know the players names? It's annoying.

Anyway, new glass of wine in hand: Germany starts the second half with a bang as a dangerous cross to Prinz is deflected by Jermone's hyper-extended foot just - and I do mean JUST - before Prinz gets there. Germany is looking a bit more together. Overall, as the game gets going again, they have far more shots on target but, then again, Dede sees them coming from a mile away.

At 54 minutes, Micheal & Nwocha make a fantastic attack as Michael takes the ball up past two defenders, and takes her shot - Angerer has come out of the goal and deflects the ball, which is picked up promptly by no. 4, who takes another strong shot on target - Angerer, who has been backing up to her line, makes the dive and another unbelievable save.

She is being challenged more by Nigeria than she was by Brazil. Today, both teams are seeming increasingly frustrated by the absence of a goal.

Next thing you know, Nigeria makes another brilliant - and I mean BRILLIANT attack at about 56 minutes, as their midfield scraps the ball forward where it is picked up by Nkwocha, slipped out to Michael on the wing, give-and-go with Nwocha as the two move on the goal - and Michael takes a shot that goes wide of the goal again. ARGH. By the way, Nkwocha (also twice named African women's player of the year) plays in Sweden as well, for Sunnana.

Nasty bit of confusion Nigeria's back line rattles the team as defenders hold the ball too long and then leave it to Dede to sort it out too late - this suggest the door is opening for Germany - but, amazingly Nigeria recovers and spends the next shift in Germany's half, doing their best to work the odds by taking as many shots as they can. Angerer doesn't seem phased in the least. Laudher seems annoyed, however, as she takes a fistful of Uwak's shirt and yanks her to the ground. Nwocha's header off the free kick goes wide. She never really connected with it.

And, well, that's practically the game. It's about 65 minutes, and Germany brings the ball up with clever one-two touch triangles. They bring it all the way down to Nigeria's corner and Mitag (who'd been on the pitch for, like 3 minutes) reaches with her foot to send a gorgeous short cross into space into which materializes Stegemann's foot. Et voila. Chance not wasted. Chance converted into that singular all important point.

Nigeria - and in particular Dede (pictured here) - deserve much credit and admiration for fighting on, and keeping Germany to a single point (Final score: 0-1). Super Falcons: Left Wing sends you her best cross in sympathy! I was rooting for you!


PS: Nadine Angerer looks a lot like Joaquin Pheonix. Don't you think?





[August 12: On their site, FIFA says of this match that Nigeria had poor finishing - they call it "profligacy in front of the goal". But then they also go on and on about Angerer, and wonder if she's on her way to keeping a clean sheet through yet another international tournament. Well: Which is it? Because Nigeria had plenty of shots on target. And you can't have it both ways! Nigeria gave Angerer a much tougher game than Germany gave Dede - though Dede did have some great saves. Anyway, it's just yet another lame moment in the very thin English language reporting on games not involving the US! Angerer is a brilliant keeper. The best teams, the best strikers in the world have failed to convert their 'chances' in front of her.]