Falcons, Dream Team Jet Out for Crucial Qualifying Games on Thursday

Players and officials of the Senior Women National Team, Super Falcons, and the U-23 National Team will fly out of Nigeria on Thursday for their crucial second legs in pursuit of 2016 Olympic Games tickets.

Siasia’s wards won 2-1 against Congo’s Red Devils in Port Harcourt and have no illusions as to the fact that plenty odds will be put in their strides by the hosts in notorious Pointe Noire. Danjuma’s ladies played a 1-1 draw with Equatorial Guinea in Abuja and are also equally braced up for expected fierce reception by the hosts in Bata.

The Falcons will fly into Malabo at about 3am on Friday aboard CEIBA ariline, and then proceed to mainland Bata by 7am. The team is scheduled to have the official training at the Stadium Nkoatoma de Bata on Saturday, ahead of Sunday’s clash between the two strongest women’s football –playing nations in Africa.

The Dream Team, gold medallists at the Men’s Football Tournament of the Olympics at the Centennial Games in Atlanta 19 years ago, will be led by the man who took the team to silver at the Olympics in Beijing seven years ago.

They will fly aboard Ethiopia Airline to Pointe Noire, to arrive just after noon.

Already, leaders of the Nigerian community in Congo-Brazzaville, who mobilized Nigerians in that country and provided useful tips for the Super Eagles before a 2-0 win against the Red Devils in the same city in November last year, have swung into action to back the Dream Team all the way.

FIFA has appointed Marximina Luzia Bernardo from Angola as referee for the Equatorial Guinea-Nigeria match in Bata, with fellow Angolans Luisa Massanga Luhaco, Andalia Bimbi Francisco Jeremias and Tania Marisa Duarte as first assistant, second assistant and fourth official respectively. Agathe Athacou of Cote d’Ivoire is the referee assessor and Nomsa Mahlangu from South Africa as commissioner.

In Pointe Noire, Mohamed Marouf from Egypt is the referee, alongside compatriots Mahmoud Ahmed Abo El Regal, Samir Gamal Saad and Mahmoud Zakria El Banna who will serve as first assistant, second assistant and reserve referee respectively. Bernard Mfubusa from Burundi is the match commissioner.

The NFF