Plumptre: ‘People counted us out against England but they ate their words’

 Super Falcons defender Ashleigh Plumptre on Tuesday said the team has made a huge statement with its outstanding performance at the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup despite crashing out in

round 16.

The Falcons despite poor preparation and the crisis that rocked the team before and during the championships were exceptional.

They played goalless in their first match against reigning Olympics Champions Canada.

Defeated one of the host nations, Australia, in the second match 3-2 and recorded another goalless draw against the Republic of Ireland to qualify for the round 16.

In the round of 16, their opponent was the European Champion England.  

Football aficionados at home and abroad wrote off the Falcons, especially after England's 6-1 thrashing of China in their last group match.

But the Falcons put up a performance that shocked local and international football buffs.

Despite losing to England via penalties after 120 minutes of entertaining football which ended goalless, with Nigeria having the upper hand, the whole world applaud them.

Reacting to the team performance, “I think everybody counted us out against England,” Plumptre told The Athletic.

“And I’m telling you, after this game, I’m tired of people just saying that African teams are just strong and they’re just fast and count us out as being technical or tactical.

“We just pushed England to the very end. And I actually think that we had better chances than them.

 “We made a statement here. We won’t be forgotten for what we’ve done, and this will just be the foundation moving forward.

With the narrative now changed, Plumptre believes the world will take Nigeria and African teams more seriously in their future outings.

“Now we have expectations to get out of this group all the time. To push these teams all the time. We just need to keep believing in ourselves and get the backing we deserve, and I think we can go a long way,” Plumptre concluded.

With the Olympic qualifiers just ahead, the Super Falcons must pick themselves up quickly to build on their World Cup performance.

First, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will first have to sort out their issues with Coach Randy Waldrum, who openly criticised the federation for paying lip service to the women’s game in Nigeria in the build-up to the World Cup.