Quality friendlies before the Olympics could have been priceless and supremely helpful for the chances of attaining a podium finish for the Super Falcons in the mundial.
The team could have honed the long ball strategy used against Spain if they had played a team that plays like Spain in friendlies and Wadlrum's folly not to include credible center attacking midfielders and more wingers could have been addressed
with the drafting of better suited options to provide squad depth and resilience that the team lacked in France.
I learnt a lot from monitoring the Super Falcons in this tournament.
Waldrum was using the group stage matches to experiment whereas quality friendly matches against Portugal, Argentina and South Korea (for example) would have been immensely helpful templates and prototypes as to how the Falcons would approach these foes.
We played Canada in an Okrika-fabric (Okrika is a Nigerian slang used to refer to affordable second-hand clothes) friendly when Caftan opponents were there aplenty.
Did we play any North American team? So playing Canada was as useless a preparatory foe as practicing how to flee from a herd of dead warthogs.
In the tournament, it became clear that Okeke wasn't ready with the full fullback comfit of skills; something that could have been addressed early enough. Demehin's proclivity for pressing the Super Eagles' Ndidi-type self-destruct tackling button could have been managed (Nigeria were still in contention against Spain and Japan before Demehin's headless chicken tackles stitched their arses to the wall of despair).
Echegini could have emerged as the unlikely centre forward due to her razor sharpness in front of goal and her uncanny ability to sniff out scoring possibilities.
Ucheibe is never an attacking midfielder because she hasn't got the fluidity of movement and goal scoring credibility to carry that role: another factor that may have forced Waldrum's hand to reconsider his 4-1-4-1 formation.
Iheuzo's inadequacies in front of goal could have forced a rethink of the starting 11 centre forward. Okeke's frailties and Nicole's Payne's rising credentials could also have been brought into sharper relief pre-tournament.
You can never place a price on quality friendlies.
I belong to that demography that remember how high flying midfielder Wilson Orunma was dropped from the 2002 World Cup party on the account of his self-destructing midfield displays in quality (i mean quality) friendlies prior to the 2002 World Cup. The midfield simply crumbled and collapsed whenever he replaced Jay Jay Okocha particularly in the game against Ireland which served as a dress-rehearsal for the World Cup game against England.
So yes, the successful participation of the Super Falcons was holed below the waterline by NFF/Sports Ministry's failure to commit resources into arranging quality pre-tournament friendlies for the Super Falcons: friendlies that could have allowed Waldrum address shortcomings he would later be addressing in the tournament proper, when it was too late.
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