Equatorial Guinea will be banking on an array of new and young players to push aside Nigeria and other teams at this year’s Africa Women Cup of Nations, which starts this weekend in Accra, Ghana.
This is the verdict of the team’s captain, Genoveva Anonman Nze, as the 29-year old Nigerian-born battler and 2012 Africa Female Footballer of The Year believes her team will show unpredictable form to surprise all.
Equatorial Guinea are in Group B alongside the defending champions and eight-time winners, Nigeria as well as South Africa and Zambia, who they will face in their opening match on Sunday, November 18.
Equatorial Guinea won the AWCON title on two occasions when they hosted the showpiece in 2008 and 2012, but Nze believes they can also win it on away soil as well.
Nze, who scored Equatorial Guinea’s two goals in a 3-2 loss to Australia at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, hopes to lead by example on the road to glory in Ghana.
She is one of 25 players Equatorial Guine’s coach, Severino Besecu will be banking on to achieve a third conquest of the Africa diadem.
Nze has seen her club career take her to countries including Germany, Spain, USA, South Africa, Israel, and South Korea.
She was the first foreign player to win the Bundesliga female golden boot award when she got 22 goals for USV Jena of Germany in the 2011-12 season.
Although Nze admits other teams have a head start on her side, due to the fact that they were only reinstated recently after an appeal to CAF, she believes Equatorial Guinea can go far at the competition, which also serves as qualifiers for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
However, even if Equatorial Guinea finish in the top three, they would not be eligible to appear at the Mundial in France, due to a ruling by FIFA in 2017, but Nze says they want to take issues one at a time.
The two-time African female champions were reinstated to AWCON 2018 by Confederation of African Football (CAF) a week ago after they won an appeal, but Nze says they will work hard to make up on lost time.
“It’s true that we have little preparation time and it will not be easy for us. But we will go with the mentality of making good matches.
“We have a new team and young players eager to compete,” said Nze, who was named to the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup All-Stars team, as the first African player to achieve that feat.
