Nigeria's Falconets 2:0 Malawi - Retrospective Reflection

It was solid line up that Coach Moses Aduku put out, to be fair. The NWFL Hotshot Tactician clearly wanted to leave no stone unturned going to the second leg in a fortnight.

What with Igbokwe, Adeshina, Ifeanyi and Nwocha headlining the starting 11, we were up for some truly fascinating football.

But, did they deliver?

Malawi have to be applauded.

They put up stiff resistance and their goalkeeper, ever so eager to run out, bailed them out several times from Nigeria's dangerous long balls before she got injured (coming out, again) only for Kindness Ifeanyi to stab into the resultant empty net for Nigeria's coup-de-grace in 57 minutes.

Before then, in 46 minutes, a cross from the left, after fancy footwork from the winger, was met by a deflected shot that gave Nigeria a 1 goal lead - the match ended 2:0 to Nigeria.

I went into the encounter praying that Nigeria's performance would make it worth my while. And, while there were no moments of magic from the Falconets, they did the business.

They delivered crosses into the opposition 18 yard box with varying degrees of quality - several were decent, some were forgettable.

Their passes were neat and tidy, with the odd dangerous through balls into opposition defences to spice up proceedings. But, nothing here really pumped up my blood or got me to the edge of my seat.

The Falconets won the midfield battles and restrained Malawi, stopping them from making meaningful inroads into the Falconets' 18 yard box.

It was nice to see Nigeria's fullbacks overlapping to deliver decent crosses plus some players produced pockets of passing interplays that were pleasurable.

I recall a wicked free kick from the Falconets in the second half that smashed against the crossbar; wicked! They could even have been 1:0 up as early as the 5th minute had Queen Joseph and Mary Mamudu not bumped into each other inside Malawi's 18 yard box before Queen made a mess of the shot!

All in all, it was a professionally produced, purposefully presented powerful performance that failed to produce polish in places, but succeeded in producing the needed points in a manner that the players can be proud of.