Super Falcons 2:1 South Africa - Retrospective Review

Many thanks to South Africa and Nigeria for serving up a feisty yet fabulous football fiesta in yesterday's Wafcon semi-final in a manner that enhanced the credibility of women's football on the continent.

A massive well done goes to Coach Justine Madugu for masterminding a hard-fought victory against one of the most tactically astute tacticians he would ever encounter in the women's game in Coach Desiree Ellis.

It was a game of 2 halves, first half belonging to Madugu, winning it 1:0, and Ellis winning the second half (tactics wise), which rightly ended 1:1.

Madugu's girls have perfected their mastery of the long ball strategy. This strategy was instrumental in the obliteration of Zambia in the quarter-final and it also came good here.

Time and again in the first half, laser-guided long balls were being launched from the nook and cranny of the pitch, like stray bullets from the rifle of a mass shooter. Alozie (who had the game of her life in Super Falcons colours), Plumptre, Ajibade, Ayinde, Okoronkwo, and Demehin all had a crack of this long ball whip in the first half.

Easily, 4 goals could have been manufactured from these long balls in the first half alone, but for the heroics of South Africa's goalkeeper and backline and some shots that didn't pack enough punch from Nigerian strikers.

This strategy, and the high pressing and physical approach from Madugu's instructions and direction, made it challenging for South Africa to settle into a rhythm long enough to bring the menace of their intricate passing routine to bear.

All that would change in the second half when Ellis flipped the script by flooding the midfield zone with bodies in the second half and using a blend of passes on grass and long balls to pay the Super Falcons back in their own coin.

At that point, it became really tensed, exhausting and quite worrisome to watch from a Nigerian perspective as South Africa were rightly gaining a foothold in the match, ruffling Falcons' feathers, and finding cracks behind enemy lines to exploit.

South Africa had latched on a second wind, a wind slowly drifting Nigeria's chances off course.

The equaliser didn't come as a surprise to me and I felt it was well deserved. I said to myself: "well done South Africa; game on!"

Madugu was stunned! Ellis was showing him how it is done, but the Nigerian coach was undeterred. Rather than make attacking substitutions (as he had done in the past), he shored up Nigeria's midfield with hard-tackling, no-nonsense, ball-winning midfielders who will use all their experience to wrestle back command of the midfield, long enough for the resumption of long balls being launched to wreak havoc.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was exactly what happened.

In the dying embers, with the midfield choked, Alozie launched an audacious long ball from around the centre circle which evaded all the foot soldiers to seal the deal!

Madugu prevailed on the night, but only just! Ellis has stretched him to his limits, to a placed where he had never being before, being the first coach to record a goal against him thus far.