The Sun News On-line

Nigeria’s female team and Africa’s flag bearers, Super Falcons, are expected to go all out today to redeem their image and rekindle the hope of many female soccer enthusiasts who are looking forward to seeing them advance to the second round of the Beijing 2008 Olympic women’s football event.

The Coach Jossy Lad-tutored girls, who are making their third Olympic appearance, will have a Herculean task of combating the onslaught of fast-paced German girls, who are the second best team in the world, according to FIFA rankings.

Germany, incidentally, are World Cup champions, a feat they achieved at the last FIFA female World Cup, also held in China in 2007.
Prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics, Super Falcons were camped in Germany were they played a friendly with the German girls in a game that ended 3–1 in favour of the Germans. Eventually, when both teams met in Athens, it took the Germans a great deal of effort before they could edge out the Super Falcons at the quarterfinal stage of the event.

Falcons have won only one match out of the six games they have played in their participations at the last two editions of the Olympics against Japan in Athens 2004.
The African favourites are definitely going to walk on a tight rope, smarting from their 1–0 defeat in the hands of North Korea in their first Group F match on Wednesday.
Coach Lad would be banking on players like Cynthia Uwak, Perpetua Nkwocha, Rita Chikwelu, Maureen Eke, Christie George and others to match the Germans full force.

Before the team departed for their training tour of China, Assistant Coach of the Nigerian side, Rolandson Odeh, had stated that the mission of the team to Beijing Olympics was "to change a preconceived notion that Super Falcons cannot shine outside the shores of Africa."
Ever since the game of female football made its mark on the African continent, Falcons have been on the forefront of achievement, a feat, which they have unsuccessfully failed to translate at the world stage.

Coach Odeh, while admitting to the fact that the Nigerian girls had failed at the world stage, said that the team’s mission in Beijing was to spring surprises.
"Nobody should write us off yet, we are here to spring surprises. The team will face Germany with all the seriousness the game deserves," Odeh said.
African female football queen, Cynthia Uwak, has vowed to play against Germany with every drop of her blood. The prolific striker said that the era Falcons were labelled as underdogs, who could not match other teams force-for-force had gone.

Although the team lost narrowly to North Korea in the opening game, Uwak said the past would shape their mood and determination against the Germans.
"There are no two games that are alike, we have put behind the 0–1 defeat by North Korea and that result will spur us to give our 101 per cent performance against the Germany.
"We are in Beijing for business, though we lost to Korea, it was a good game and it is going to be an explosive game against Germany.
"We are not different from other countries, we are capable of beating any team on a good day," Uwak said.