Nigeria finished their women’s World Cup soccer campaign on Tuesday with a 1-0 win over Canada in Group A, but both teams are heading home after failing to reach the quarter-finals.
Nigeria were the fastest to react following a 10-minute-long power cut toward the end of the second half, poaching the winner in the 84th minute — just after the lights went back on.
The blackout meant the game had 15 minutes of added time.
Photo: AFP
The power cut on 72 minutes temporarily halted the game, but Nigeria caught the Canadian defense napping when the game restarted.
After the Africans had a shot blocked, midfielder Perpetua -Nkwocha — who had hit the post in the first half — was the fastest to react and slammed her shot home.
Nigeria coach Eucharia Uche, who has sparked controversy during the tournament by branding homosexuality “dirty,” said she was happy with the victory.
“We were out of contention from the tournament’s outset when we lost to France and I don’t think we will make that mistake again,” Uche said. “This is a plus for the game in Nigeria. We should be talking about playing in the finals, but we are lagging behind in Africa in terms of preparations, in terms of league.”
“Lots need to be done, we need to catch up with the rest of the world,” she said.
It was heartbreak for the -Canadians, as the CONCACAF champions now head home with three defeats from their World Cup campaign, while Nigeria picked up three points for their first victory.
Canada coach Carolina Morace paid tribute to her side, who went down fighting.
“The team played with their hearts and showed some good football,” Morace said. “They did what I asked, the first chance we had after a few minutes and the ball didn’t want to go into the net.”
“We knew Nigeria are a tough team. The firsthalf was 50-50, we dominated the game in the second half, but they had the chances to score,” she said.
As both sides lost to quarter-finalists France and Germany in their previous group games, this meeting at Dynamo Dresden’s ground was simply for pride in front of 13,638 fans.
Canada came into the game licking their wounds after a painful 4-0 reversal at the hands of France on Thursday last week in Bochum, the same day Nigeria went down fighting in a bruising 1-0 defeat to Germany in Frankfurt.
The Africans went closest to hitting the target in the first half as Nigeria midfielder Ebere Orji hit the crossbar and Nkwocha smashed her shot off the post.
At the other end, Canada captain Christine Sinclair, playing with a face mask thanks to a stray German elbow in the opening 2-1 defeat to the hosts, went close midway through the half.
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