By John Egbokhan
Coach Ndem Egan Edat has attributed Nigeria’s 2-0 defeat to Germany in the final of the FIFA U-20 World Cup to the inability of the players, to take their chances.

TRIUMPHANT RETURN ••• Some members of the team Nigeria to Athletics Championship in Kenya, Blessing Okagbare (L) and teammate, Shade Abuga (R) on arrival in Lagos Monday Photo: Lamidi Bamidele

After seeing his girls etch their names in the history books as the first African nation to reach the final of any organised FIFA event for women, Egan was hoping that the team would upset the free-scoring Germans, in front of a partisan home crowd.

But that dream remained just a dream as the west Africans fell short of the high standard they had made in reaching the summit of the tournament.

The former Nigerian international, who was understandably very unhappy with some aspects of his players’ performance, however still had only words of praise for the team

He believes the team, who displayed pace, power, passion and solid organisation throughout the three-week event, have now set the standard for other African nations to follow.“We will now be a role model in Africa for women’s football,” Egan told fifa.com.

He added that “we are very happy with the performance of our team. There are some great prospects among them and some will graduate to the senior team. Undoubtedly Nigeria have learned from their experience in Chile two years ago.”

The coach believes that what went down in Germany was only the start of a successful period for women football in Nigeria.

“We have been trying to build up our youth teams to help them grow in future competitions and right now there is a big programme going on to bring on the players. Our mission is to bring on the youth so that they can compete in competitions.

The federation is developing women’s football in our country and we are also trying to encourage corporations to form female teams so we can get players into the national teams for international competitions. That way the programme goes on and on.”

Certainly the exploits of the midfield dynamo Ebere Orji, the selfless running of Desire Oparanozie, the dogged work between the penalty areas of Glory Iroka, the long-range shooting of Helen Ukaonu and the leadership of Joy Jegede, can only serve as great examples to younger players of what can be achieved through hard work and dedication.