The Nigeria women's national football team, nicknamed the Super Falcons, represents Nigeria in international women's football and is controlled by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). The team is Africa's most successful international women's football team, having won a record eleven Women's Africa Cup of Nations titles; their most recent title in 2018, after defeating South Africa in the final. The team is also the only women's national team from the Confederation of African Football to have reached the quarterfinals in both the FIFA Women's World Cup and the Summer Olympics.

They are also one of the few teams in the world and only African team to have qualified for every edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, with their best performance at the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup where they reached the quarterfinals.

History

They won the first seven African championships, and through their first 20 years lost only five games to African competition: 12 December 2002 to Ghana in Warri, 3 June 2007 at Algeria, 12 August 2007 to Ghana in an Olympic qualifier, 25 November 2008 at Equatorial Guinea in the semis of the 2008 Women's African Football Championship and May 2011 at Ghana in an All Africa Games qualification match.

The Super Falcons have been able to dominate beyond Africa in such arenas as the FIFA Women's World Cup or the Olympic Games however. The team has been to every World Cup since 1991, but managed just once to finish in the top two. In 2003, the Super Falcons turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the first round, failing to score a single goal and losing all three Group A matches. They did little better in 2007, drawing only one of their Group B matches. However, they faced the group of death in both 2003 and 2007, grouped both times with rising Asian power North Korea, traditional European power Sweden, and a historic women's superpower in the USA.

Nigeria hosted the African women's championship finals for the third time in 2001 which were then canceled due to a severe outbreak of gang induced violence within the Nigerian area, replacing Gabon, which was initially granted the right to host but later pulled out citing financial difficulties, and won it for the seventh time in a row. Nigeria's Super Falcons and Ghana's Black Queens represented Africa in China for the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup.

The "Falconets" are the country's junior team (U-20), which performed creditably in the 2006 FIFA U-20 Women's World Championship held in Russia when they beat Finland 8–0 before they were sent packing by Brazil in the Quarter-finals. They were the runner-up to Germany at the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. Nigeria also played in the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup held in Canada and lost to Germany in the finals 0–1, Asisat Oshoala got both the golden ball and golden boot.

The "Flamingoes" are the country's cadet team (U-17), which qualified for the inaugural women's U-17 World Cup New Zealand 2008. Nigeria qualified for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup where they were placed in Group A with South Korea, Norway and hosts France.

Labour disputes

The Super Falcons have engaged in multiple disputes with the NFF over back pay, unpaid bonuses and bonus amounts, tournament preparation, and facilities, including sit-in protests, training boycotts, or threats to boycott matches in 2004, 2007, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023.

Team image

Nicknames

The Nigeria women's national football team has been known or nicknamed as the "Super Falcons".

FIFA world rankings

As of 9 June 2023

  Worst Ranking    Best Ranking    Worst Mover    Best Mover  

Results and fixtures

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

Legend

  Win   Draw   Lose   Fixture

2023

2024

• Nigeria Results and Fixtures – Soccerway.com
• global sport

Coaching staff

Current coaching staff

On 11 July 2023, the coaching squad for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup was released by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

As of 13 December 2023

Manager history

Players

Current squad

• The following players were named to the squad for the 2024 Olympic qualifying 4th Round against  South Africa in April 2024.

Recent call-ups

Following players have been called up to a squad in the past 12 months.

Previous squads

Bold indicates winning squads

Captains

• Desire Oparanozie (2019)
• Asisat Oshoala (2019–2022)
• Onome Ebi (2022–)

Records

*Active players in bold, statistics as of November 2020.

Honours

Intercontinental

• FIFA Women's World Cup
  • Quarterfinals: 1999
  • Round of 16: 2019
  • Best Jersey: 2019
• Olympic Games
  • Quarterfinals: 2004

Continental

• Africa Women Cup of Nations

Champions: 1991, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018

• Third-place: 2008
• African Games
  • Gold Medal: 2003, 2007
  • Fourth-place: 2015

Regional

• WAFU Zone B Women's Cup
  • Bronze: 2018
  • Winners: 2019

Other tournaments

• 2019 Four Nations Tournament (women's football)
  • Third-place
• 2021 Turkish Women's Cup
  • Champions
• 2023 Women's Revelations Cup
  • Third-place

Awards

• African Women's National Team of the Year
  • Winners: (2010, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2023)

Competitive record

FIFA Women's World Cup

Olympic Games

Africa Women Cup of Nations

African Games

• 2019 edition of the football tournament was played by the U-20 team.

WAFU Women's Cup record

Other tournaments

See also

• Sport in Nigeria
  • Football in Nigeria
    • Women's football in Nigeria
• Nigeria women's national under-20 football team
• Nigeria women's national under-17 football team
• NWFL Premiership
• Nigeria men's national football team

References

Notes

External links

• (in English) Official website
• (in English) FIFA profile