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Morocco clash is a new milestone for Super Falcons 

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA

Nigeria’s Super Falcons will play their 60th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) match when they confront Morocco this evening in the semi-finals of the current edition.

No nation has grossed such an amount of matches since the competition kicked off in Kaduna, Nigeria 24 years ago.

Coincidentally, they played their first WAFCON match (then known as African Women Championship -AWC) against Morocco.

It is against the same team that they are hitting the milestone of 60 this evening. For Morocco, this will be their 11th match in the competition having featured only twice in 1998 and 2000.

Nigeria defeated Morocco 8-0 in the first ever WAFCON match played in Kaduna on17 October 1998. When both teams met again in South Africa 22 years ago, Nigeria again won 4-0 on the road to their second of their nine titles.

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Morocco on the other hand, have been honour-starved. They drew their first ever international match, 1-1 with South Africa on 5 July 1998.

When they beat Burkina Faso 1-0 to flag off their 2022 WAFCON, it was their first win of a match in 24 years.

Super Falcons on the other hand have attended all 11 editions of the tournament playing 59 matches so far and lost just six times, the latest being the 2-1 defeat to South Africa in the Group C opener of Morocco 2022.

They had hitherto had a clean sheet, even across all competitions in Africa until their 1-0 loss to Ghana at home in Warri on 10 December 2002.

A win today puts on course, Super Falcon’s dream of attaining what is termed ‘La Decima’ in Spanish football – 10th title.

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MOROCCO – NIGERIA HEAD-TO-HEAD

P W D L F A

Nigeria 2 2 0 0 14 0

Morocco 2 0 0 2 0 14

  • 17 Oct.1998 (AWC) Nigeria 8 – 0 Morocco
  • 15Nov.2000 (AWC) Morocco 0 – 6 Nigeria

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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