Femi Solaja
Following Super Falcons’ 4-0 defeat of Burundi in WAFCON 2022 Group C final game last night, defending champion Nigeria have been lined up to play Lionesses of Cameroon in one of the quarter final matches beginning from Wednesday.
In the fixtures released by CAF before this stage of the tournament, it is the second placed teams in Group B and C that will play in the last of the four quarter finals fixtures on Thursday 14th July.
Interestingly, the fixture has recorded the highest head-to-head encounter more than any other in the history of Nigeria’s 12th participation in the now biennial women’s continental football.
On record, the neighbouring countries have met 12 times with Nigeria winning 10 times, drew once and lost just one time to the emerging power house in African football.
Nigeria got the better of the Cameroonian in the maiden edition of the tournament in 1991 when Super Falcons won 2-0 and 4-0 over two legs to book a slot in the FIFA Women Football tournament in China.
Both sides did not meet again until 1998 when Nigeria hosted the tournament in Ijebu-Ode and Kaduna and Falcons recorded 6-0 win against Cameroon at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium where the two semi-final matches were played.
Nigeria won 3-0 again in the group phase in South Africa in 2000 and four years later in the Rainbow nation both side played out 2-2 draw in the group phase and qualified into the knockout stage.
But the Central African nation were not lucky in 2006 as Nigeria secured 5-0 win in the semi-final clash with Perpetual Nkwocha scoring a hat-trick and two years later, both teams played 1-1 score-line in third placed match but Nigeria won 4-3 on penalties.
Nigeria secured 5-1 win against Cameroon in 2010 in semi-final clash and Nkwocha recorded another hat-trick in South Africa and two years later in Equatorial Guinea, both teams met twice with Nigeria won the group phase match 2-1 but lost the third placed match to Cameroon by a lone goal scored by Gaelle Enganamoiut.
But 2014 in Namibia, Nigeria bounced back to winning way with a 2-0 victory Just Falcons won by a lone goal in 2016 edition hosted by Cameroon with only goal scored by Desire Oparanozie.
At the last edition in Ghana, both teams played out a goalless semi final clash but Nigeria won 4-2 on penalties and went ahead to win the cup against South Africa in the final match.
