U-17 WWC – Flamingoes Coach Laments France Loss, Looks Ahead to Samoa

It became back-to-back defeats at the U-17 Women's World Cup for Nigeria's Flamingoes, as they fell to a narrow 1–0 loss against France on Wednesday night.

The girls created a couple of chances but failed to find the net, and were eventually let down once again by a goalkeeping error from Elizabeth Boniface, which allowed Maissa Fathallah to score what proved to be the winner.

Coach Bankole Olowookere stated that it was unfortunate to concede late in the game, adding that the girls would work hard to keep their hopes of advancing from the group stage alive.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Olowookere said:

"So disappointing, but we need to see if we can get something out of the best losers’ situation."

"For our last game, we just have to work hard and see. The game we played against France was much better than the one against Canada, and if we had put up this kind of fight earlier, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now."

When asked about the late goal conceded, he said;

"It’s so unfortunate that the late goal came in; it’s very painful. We’ll just try to work hard and see if we can get something."

On whether the Flamingoes would need to win by a wide margin against Samoa, Bankole stated:

"Exactly, that’s the only thing we can do, because we have a deficit of about four goals now. So, playing against Samoa, first of all we’ll aim to get the three points, then we’ll see how we can increase the tally to make it more comfortable for us to be considered."

"That’s what we’re going to work on now." He concluded.