Nigeria’s Falconets to battle France, Canada, S’Korea in U-20 World Cup

Nigeria U-20 women’s team, the Falconets have discovered their group stage foes ahead of the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

The Nigerian ladies were drawn in Group C alongside France, Canada and South Korea for this year’s tournament billed to hold in Costa Rica.

The draw was held on Thursday at the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica in San José, with the competition billed to run from 10th to 28th August in the cities of Alajuela and San Jose.

The 16 qualified teams were seeded based on their performances in the five previous World Cups.

Also, five bonus points were added to each of the confederation’s current champions that won the respective qualifying tournament.

Africa’s other representative Ghana are in Group D and will take on the United States, Japan and Netherlands.

At the 2018 in France, the Falconets crashed out in the quarter-finals after losing 2-1 to finalists Spain.

Their best achievement at the U-20 Women’s World Cup was at the 2010 and 2014 editions where they finished as runners-up.

Read Also: Super Falcons to battle S’Africa, Botswana, Burundi in 2022 AWCON group stage

At the 2014 tournament, Asisat Oshoala emerged top scorer with seven goals and won the Most Valuable Player award.

To qualify for this year’s tournament, the Falconets hammered Central African Republic 11-0 on aggregate in the second round.

In the third round, they beat Congo 4-0 away and had a walkover in the return leg in Nigeria.

They faced Cameroon in the fourth stage of the qualifiers and after a goalless first Leg in Yaoundé, the Falconets won the second leg 3-0.

And in the fifth and final round, they overcame Senegal 7-2 on aggregate.

The 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup will be the 10th edition.

Costa Rica would have hosted the 2020 edition but it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be the second time that Costa Rica host a FIFA tournament after the 2014 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.

Costa Rica and Panama were originally selected as co-hosts of the 2020 edition on 20 December 2019, before the withdrawal of Panama leaving Costa Rica as the sole hosts.

On 17 November 2020, FIFA announced that the 2020 edition of the tournament would be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Costa Rica were appointed as hosts of the next edition of the tournament in 2022.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now