Showing posts with label international sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international sports. Show all posts

Sunday, November 28, 2010

We're Going To Germany!

The 'we' being the Team USA women's soccer team that is.

Thanks to Amy Rodriguez's goal in the 40th minute, the USA posted another 1-0 win over Italy in the second leg of a two leg home and home playoff series played in Chicago.

The 2-0 goal differential helped the Team USA women secure the 16th and final qualifying spot for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup that will be contested in Germany starting June 26.

Despite being a two time FIFA women's world champion in 1991 and 1999 and the 2008 gold medallists in Beijing, the Number 1 FIFA ranked Team USA women have been a team in transition.  Stars such as Mia Hamm who powered that rise to international prominence have retired and a new generation of players has begun to take their place.     .

Team USA was upset in the 2010 CONCACAF region semifinals by Mexico and finished third behind regional qualifiers Mexico and CONCACAF champ Canada

The 2-1 loss to Mexico sent them into the two leg UEFA/CONCACAF playoff with Italy after beating Costa Rica 3-0 in the CONCACAF third place game.  

They won the first leg of the playoff last week in Italy by the same 1-0 score. .

The teams in addition to the USA, Canada and Mexico who will play for the title next June and July include back to back defending 2003 and 2007 world champions and host Germany, Australia,  England, 1995 champion Norway, 2003 runner up Sweden, France, Japan, North Korea, New Zealand, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, 2007 runner up Brazil and tournament first timer Colombia. 

They will now catch their breath and like everybody else in the world tune in at 1:00 PM EST on Monday to watch the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup Draw from Frankfurt to see what group they end up in, who they'll play against and where they'll play in the opening round of the tournament this June.

Here's hoping they have a better run than the men did in South Africa this summer and we see Team USA in the final on July 17 in Frankfurt.




Saturday, November 27, 2010

There Nigeria Goes Again-Sports Gender Whining About Equatorial Guinea

The soccer entitlement of Nigeria knows no boundaries.

Seems like I wrote about this story two years ago when Equatorial Guinea hosted the Africa Women's Cup tournament and eventually won the title in what was considered a major upset.

The mighty Nigerian Super Falcons women's squad was mortal during this 2008 edition of the tournament as the five time champions whined, complained and griped their way to a bronze medal finish despite scoring only three goals in the entire AWC tournament.

Most of the Nigerian gender bitching and complaining was focused on the Equatorial Guinea home team.   Nigerians threw 'that's a man' shade at its team captain Anonma Genoveva, who was the MVP of the 2008 AWC tournament with seven goals and the Simpore sisters.

The Nigerian Gender Bashing Noise Machine reached deafening levels after Equatorial Guinea upset Nigeria in the semis 1-0 and later went on to beat South Africa 2-1 to complete their dream of taking their first AWC title on home soil . 

After all the gender lip flapping the Nigerian Football Federation did during the 2008 AWC and later to the Confederation of Africa Football, the continental governing body for African soccer, the Nigerian Football Federation looked like hypocrites later.

In 2009 word leaked out they had a talented then 16 year old teen striker named Bessy Ekaete they invited to Super Falcon camp who was discovered during her medical exam to be  intersex.  A Nigerian superfan started an effort to fund Ekaete's SRS so that she could be eligible to potentially play for the Super Falcons.  


Fast forward the story to now, and this time the African Women's Championship soccer tournament was being hosted in South Africa from October 31-November 14.

The stakes were higher for this AWC  because it was a qualifier to determine which two nations would represent the African continent in the upcoming 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany.    

You would think that all would be right in the soccer world for the Super Falcons after capturing their sixth AWC title, avenging their 2008 loss by beating defending champ Equatorial Guinea 4-2 and punching their Women's World Cup ticket at the same time.


But do you think the Super Falcons were happy about how their sporting business trip to South Africa transpired?   Nope.   

The Nigerian sore winners filed complaints with the CAF, the governing body of African continental soccer over guess what?

The same tired assertion they made in 2008 that Equatorial Guinea was playing 'men' in the recently concluded tournament they just won for the sixth time in seven tries.


And who is the Equatorial Guinea player getting the Nigerian gender third degree this time?   Salimata Simpore.

The Confederation of Africa Football confirmed she's the player the Nigerians are gender questioning, and the complaint has been forwarded to the CAF medical committee for further review.

As I said in 2008, I don't see any Nollywood quality looking women on the Super Falcons either, so they really need to chill with this.    Or is big bad Nigeria, the most populous nation on the continent that 'scurred' of the emergence of little old Equatorial Guinea as a potential African soccer powerhouse?  

If it weren't for two Equatorial Guinea own goals in the final, the result might have been a little different.

I could be talking about Equatorial Guinea being the back to back AWC champs and the Nigerian Gender Bashing Noise Machine would probably be at Fox News levels by now.     
   

Ghana and Cameroon also made the same complaints during the recent AWC tournament.   Not surprisingly they were playing in the same Group B with Equatorial Guinea and finished second and third in the group play stage.  Equatorial Guinea knocked off the Black Queens 3-1 and played Cameroon to a 2-2 draw. 


Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon had the same 2-0-1 record in group play and both advanced to the knockout round, but Equatorial Guinea did so as Group B champion thanks to goal differential.

Cameroon eventually was blown out in the semis by Nigeria 5-1 and lost the bronze medal match to the homestanding Banyana Banyana 2-0.  The South Africans lost to Equatorial Guinea 3-1 in the other semifinal game. 


But it's only the sore winner Nigerians who have lodged an official complaint to CAF.

Equatorial Guinea's football federation of course is vigorously defending their players.  They asserted that there is a "campaign of defamation" against their team, motivated by an "inferiority complex."

Ouch.  Equatorial Guinea is also strongly motivated to defend their squad because they qualified for the FIFA Women's World Cup which will be contested next June and July.

The CAF said there is no timeline for the investigation, so stay tuned to this latest episode of Nigerian gender whining.    .