Nigeria’s female national tea, Super Falcons’ coach, Thomas Dennerby has been forced to turn his permutations around, following the return of Equatorial Guinea to the Africa Women Cup of Nations.
Equatorial Guinea had initially been thrown out by Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) on allegations of fielding an ineligible player against Kenya, who ended up in Nigeria’s group for AWCON 2018.
However, with CAF upturning their initial decision in a surprising u-turn on Wednesday, Equatorial Guinea are now in Nigeria’s group for the competition that begins on November 17.
It means Dennrby must start making plans on how to handle the only other country that has stopped Nigeria from a clean sweep of all 11 titles in the continental soccer showpiece.
Nigeria has eight titles to their name, while Equatorial Guinea have the other two, and observers know they could pose a huge challenge to Dennerby’s hopes of a historic ninth conquest of the contest in Ghana.
Equatorial Guinea beat Nigeria in the semi-final of AWCON 2008, in becoming the first team to achieve the feat, then beat South Africa in the final that year and in the 2012 edition as well.
However, Nigeria defeated Equatorial Guinea in the final of the 2010 edition of the competition, which should give Dennerby hope of survival against them in the same group that still has South Africa and Zambia.
