The Super Falcons coach Eucharia Uche and striker Perpetua Nkwocha have set their sights on reaching the semifinals of the 2011 Women‘s World Cup in Germany.
Nigeria were able to regain their African title on Sunday after beating Equatorial Guinea in the final of the 7th African Women‘s Championship in South Africa 4-2.
Uche, who was excited with the victory, told Supersport after the match that she considered the two own-goals by the Guineans as gifts that aided Nigeria‘s victory.
She said, ”I‘m impressed and happy with our success today (Sunday). What we‘ll do now is to prepare for the World Cup and aim to do better than our past record. We still have much to perfect before the tournament.”
Nkwocha, who was the top scorer of the tournament with 11 goals, said she was disappointed she could not reach her target of 15 goals.
”I‘m happy I was able to score more than half of the target but I‘m hoping to do better at the World Cup,” she said.
”We‘ll go to the World Cup with the hope of being the fourth best, at worst. That‘s the only way to prove that we are the best in Africa.”
Nkwocha praised her younger colleagues in the team for distinguishing themselves.
She said, ”Desire Oparanozie played well in the tournament and I believe she has a bright future in the team.”
The other young players have also impressed it gives us hope the team will be stronger in the future.”
Nigeria‘s best performance at the World Cup was a quarterfinal finish in 1999 when they were dumped out of the tournament by Brazil.
Source:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20101115251662
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