Nigeria’s female national team, Super Falcons coach, Thomas Dennerby has ruled out the possibility of lining his squad out against Zambia in a build-up match for next month’s African Women Cup of Nations in Ghana.
Sports247.ng reports that the Zambian side, Shepolopolo are in Nigeria for their pre-competition camping, which Dennerby admits would have been conducive for a match between both teams, but he pointed out that they are in the same group at Ghana 2018.
With both sides set to tango in the search for only two semi final tickets from Group B, which also has South Africa and Kenya, Dennerby insists it would technically wrong for the two nations to clash in a friendly.
Incidentally, a similar situation played out for the males in 2013, when the Super Eagles and Chipolopolo had a goalless draw in a build-up game before the Africa Cup of Nations, and went on to battle in a very feisty group game during the competition proper, which Nigeria eventually won by beating Burkina Faso in the final.
However, Dennerby will not have any of that, and the Swedish tacticians says he has already told his players to just stay focused and concentrate on their own performance all the time.
“We have an opportunity to play Zambia but honestly I don’t think that’s a good thing to do because we will play them at the group stage.
“So, we try to see different opportunities to handle that otherwise we play a club side or a boys team.
“Of course, we need to prepare with a game. That will be good,” Dennerby concluded.
