Nigeria will today take on France at the quarter-final match of the on-going FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan. The Flamingoes have been something of a revelation in Azerbaijan 2012 – confident, free-scoring and fast-paced, but when they face France today coach Peter Dedevbo plans to present an even slicker Flamingoes outfit.

They racked up an impressive 15 goals over three games in Group A, but while the majority may have come in their 11-0 victory over the hosts, they were not efficient in taking their chances, an issue Dedevbo is keen to work on  before their quarter-final.

Flamingoes in training

“We create chances and that’s the most important thing, as there are some teams that play and don’t create chances, and if you don’t create you don’t score goals,” the Nigerian coach told FIFA.com.

“I’m happy that at least my team are creating chances, but what we want to do is work harder on getting the opportunities and taking them too.”

Although 15 goals are a more-than-healthy tally,  they had a monumental 92 shots. Just 47 hit the target.

“After the match against Canada we went back to the drawing board to work on our finishing, which we did, and it paid off against Azerbaijan,” he said.

We don’t know how many chances we will make, but if we create five chances against France we want to take four.

Dedevbo has two of the tournament’s most prolific goal scorers in Chinwendu Ihezuo and Halimatu Ayinde, with the former playing a part in 11 of their goals so far. On the pair, Dedevbo said: “I’m happy with their performances, it’s great that they are both scoring and providing goals.”

The Flamingoes’ speed and power is enough to trouble any side, but the nimbleness and creativity of France will be a much weightier task for the African side than they’ve faced, with Les Bleuettes battle-hardened after negotiating their way through a challenging Group B.

Even so, Dedevbo declared his confidence for the game at 8km Stadium. “We respect every team that came to this world cup, I’d like to they they will respect us too. We are good at working against any team, in terms of France they have amazing quality but when we meet in the quarter-finals we want to present a different team than that who faced Colombia.”