World Cup qualification is the goal at WAFCON – Randy Waldrum

Super Falcons coach sat with the NFF TV for an interview and revealed what he feels about his team at the moment

Randy Waldrum has said the biggest target of the team ahead of the tournament is to earn a ticket for the World Cup.

Waldrum in an interview with NFF TV said he’s delighted with their training and the calibre of players in the squad.

”The two biggest things on my mind is the importance to qualify because it’s qualification for the World Cup that has always been the goal. As much as we want to win the AFCON, the most important thing for now is qualifying and another important thing for a coach is preparing well.

“I think we prepared well. We have to give credit to the President for giving us opportunities to play in those games, to take those trips (to Turkey, Canada and the US) and have those camps. It was difficult in those games in Turkey, the US and Canada as I never thought we ever had our best team together.

“I’m worried we never had our best team together at one time but it gave me an opportunity to see young players to the team and that’s going to be necessary for the future as the team progresses. We need some young, upcoming players, but I think in this camp, we have the ample time for most top players to prepare for the games and overall I’m pleased with the preparation that we had,”

The coach added that the squad is the best they could have picked at the moment and is thrilled about the quality of players in camp for the tournament.

With South Africa also proving to be a big opposition, Waldrum said there are enough players for the job.

“I think we’ve picked the best players we have to choose from. The good thing is we got to choose a good staff that has been working diligently to see that we have the best players selected for this event and we felt like that’s going to happen.

“Over the years, we’ve found some new blood with players like Ifeoma (Onumonu), Esther, unfortunately she’s injured and won’t be participating, players like Vivian (Ikechukwu) that we brought into the team and she’s playing extremely well, so I feel that we have lots of good options. Gift Monday is superb in the professional league here in the past season and is playing well as a young player. Having Asisat (Oshoala) back  healthy is a big plus. I’m excited about the young player Macleans who’s playing in Poland right now. I think it’s a lot of attacking options to choose from and we have a lot of players that can interchange. Rasheedat (Ajibade) for example has been playing in the midfield for us but could play upfront if we need. Toni Payne is the same. I think we’ve got really good attacking qualities within our team. I’m really happy with that.”