2012 AWC-Nigeria 2-1 Cameroon,Ivory Coast 5-0 Ethiopia

 NIGERIA  2 CAMEROON 1

Chief Coach of Nigeria’s Super Falcons, Kadiri Ikhana has charged his team to raise their game if they want to go far in the ongoing 2012 African Women Championship, AWC, holding in Equatorial Guinea.
The Falcons opened their AWC campaign with a 2-1 victory over the Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon yesterday. The defending champions started the first half the brighter of the two sides, dominating the Central African side for most part of the half.

The waterlogged pitch made it difficult for both sides to play their best football; a situation Perpetual Nkwocha says hindered the Nigerian side.
Ikhana however expressed his delight with the result, saying: “It is a good start despite the fact that the pitch was very wet and we couldn’t play our normal game. Our opposition was also a very tough one, but the girls were determined and played like they really wanted to win the game.

 I am very happy with the team’s performance, but they have to do more now as we are getting to the crucial stage of the tournament.”
Ikhana also commended Nkwocha who scored the second goal for the Falcons, opening her account as she bids to score 15 goals in this year’s tournament. “Perpetual played like Africa’s best player today. She really did a fantastic job and she was very impressive.” The Super Falcons will play Ethiopia on Thursday November 1 at the Bata Stadium by 5.30pm and the coach assures that the team will approach the game with same zeal.

“We have now seen the competition and we know how tight it is. No games will be easy and we will approach the game against Ethiopia (on Thursday) like we did with Cameroon. We must win that game to book our place in the semi-finals.”

IVORY COAST  5 ETHIOPIA 0

The Lady Elephants of Ivory Coast took a bow at their 1st AWC participation with an emphatic 5-0 win against Ethiopia after which they celebrated in grand style.The Elephants ignited the Bata Stadium with some breath taking passes and trickery on the ball which resulted in  the fastest goal scored so far in the tournament when N'Rehy Tia Ines netted on the 1st minute mark in the first half. She later went on to score a hat-trick for the Ivorians whose Equatorial Guinean fans aptly chanted "SALOMON KALOU" a nick name
N'Rehy Tia Ines seems to have adopted much to the delight of the fans when she did the "YOU CAN SEE ME" hand gesture popularized by Salomon Kalou  of the Ivory Coast men's national team.

The 66th minute power outage almost disrupted proceedings but the Ivorians continued to dominate the Ethiopians 10 minutes after  power was restored, to add 2 more goals via Nahi Estelle.The Ivorians were feted at their team headquaters by the Chair of the Committee for Women's Football, Ms. Berthe Adou and the Manager General, Mr. and Mrs. Eric Monnet Vabre Lucia at a gala dinner for a well deserved win.