No longer outsiders
Despite their coaching troubles, Nigeria and Zambia enter the Olympics as equals with their competition.
Three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, a star was born.
In the group stage of the of the women’s football tournament the Netherlands had just smashed a young Zambian side, putting 10 goals past the Copper Queens. Despite the thrashing and Vivianne Miedema scoring four goals, it was the Zambian forward who was receiving plaudits and attention. That forward was of course, Barbra Banda who had just scored a hattrick against the European Champions and World Cup finalists coached by Sarina Weigman.
Three days later Banda was at it again, scoring a second hattrick in a thrilling 4-4 draw with China with the other Zambian goal coming from another unknown player in Rachel Kundananji.
It represents a truly remarkable rise in the growth of African women’s football where a team that previously only had two WAFCON group stage exits to their name in 2021, now are WAFCON medallists, have won a game at the World Cup and possess arguably the two best forwards in the world.
When they kick off against the US later today, remarkably, Zambia will be seen as competitors. Yes, they are still heavy underdogs as they were in the World Cup, but the US know that if they play as well as they did last year at the World Cup they’ll be punished by the forward line of the Zambians.
The other African team representing the continent is far more familiar on the international stage. The Nigeria Super Falcons have racked up 11 WAFCON titles and are one of a handful of nations to have qualified for every single World Cup in history. But despite that continental success, like Zambia, the Super Falcons have in recent years taken a leap forward and are no longer the bullies in a footballing backwater of a continent, but instead are a serious international football nation competing against their peers.
At the last World Cup, they sailed through the ‘group of death’ undefeated and beat hosts Australia on the way to a round of 16 exit against eventual finalists England. That match will go down as one of the most remarkable World Cup games in which the 10-woman English side managed to scrape through on penalties.
Like Zambia, a host of stars have emerged over the last few years in Nigeria. Asisat Oshoala’s star has continued to rise, ending a trophy laden five-year stint at Barcelona to join Kundananji at the newly formed NWSL side Bay FC.
Players like Rasheedat Ajibade and Jennifer Echegini have joined the elite in European football and the American-Nigerian spine added to the team in the last few years by players like Michelle Alozie and the Payne sisters have taken the team to a new level. And in Chiamaka Nnadozie, the team has one of the best goalkeepers in the world. Made famous by her save against Christine Sinclair at the World Cup, she went onto save 5 penalties in Paris FC’s incredible run in the UEFA Champions League, including 3 which sent Arsenal out in qualifying.
And there is no better place for those players to shine than the Olympics, the ultimate sporting competition where legends are forged.
Perhaps it is fitting that the two representatives of the continent at the Olympics are the two nations more reliant on individual quality rather than infrastructure or systems. Both Zambia and Nigeria narrowly beat out South Africa and Morocco, the other major players in women’s football and have far less superstar power than the other qualified teams.
Either way, for the first time perhaps in footballing history, the African teams coming into a major international tournament will not be underestimated, and rightly so.
Managerial Madness
For all the incredible talent on offer for both Zambia and Nigeria on the pitch, sadly a lot of the attention will instead be focused on the two men in the dugout.
Randy Waldrum, who has been the architect of much of the recent Nigerian success is under a state of permanent scrutiny, both publicly and by the Nigerian Federation.
The American college coach was an unpopular appointment by the federation in 2020 and failure to win either the Aisha Buhari friendly tournament or the WAFCON in 2022 were unforgivable to the Nigerian public who are used to winning every match on the continent. Unfortunately for Waldrum, the fans struggle to see that much of those failures is down to the development of other nations and not the regression of the Super Falcons.
He then incurred the wrath of the federation last year when he did an interview with myself ahead of the World Cup. In the interview he told me that at one point he had not been paid in 14 months, that the federation had misappropriated almost $1 million in FIFA grants, that he was not allowed to pick certain players because they had stood up to the federation and that his assistant Lauren Gregg was barred from coming to the World Cup because he refused to pick a Nigerian based goalkeeper who he had never seen train or play live.
Needless to say, the federation was not too pleased, and Waldrum went into the World Cup knowing that he would no longer be the head coach after the tournament. But such was the performance of his team that the Nigerian public rallied behind him and demanded that his contract be renewed and sure enough, a few months after leaving his post, he was rehired in September.
Waldrum now goes into the tournament knowing that anything below expectations will likely leave him jobless.
The picture in the Zambian camp is far more distressing.
A year later at the World Cup, the Guardian reported that the coach had been sleeping with players and that others in the FA had threatened them not to come forward. Later at the World Cup, he was accused of sexually harassing a FIFA employee.
Mwape is now under investigation by FIFA and was nearly denied a visa to enter France for the Olympics. He was eventually granted one but has been banned from having any private contact with his players.
It is remarkable that Mwape has been able to stay in his job at a time when others in the women’s game accused of inappropriate conduct like Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales have been swiftly sacked.
One explanation is that Mwape is a close ally of current Zambian FA president Andrew Kamanga who himself was arrested in April this year under charges of money laundering.
For fans of the Copper Queens, for the second tournament in a row, they will be hoping that their players can perform to the best of their abilities in what seems to be a toxic and potentially dangerous environment. They are up against it on and off the pitch and will need Banda & Kundananji to be at their very best in every match if they are to make an impact.