Women’s World Cup: Ifeoma Onumonu Hopes For More Chances Against Australia

Super Falcons forward Ifeoma Onumonu is hoping to get more goalscoring opportunities when they take on Australia, the co-host of the ongoing 2023 Women’s World Cup on Thursday, July 27.

In the Super Falcons’ opening Group game against Canada last Friday, the Nigerian women’s team narrowly escaped with a 0-0 draw.

Ifeoma Onumonu had a fairly good game against Canada and almost scored in the 23rd minute of the match against the Olympic champions, but Kailen Sheridan’s outstanding save prevented it.

This demonstrated her influence during the game as she has gradually become one of the leading figures in the Super Falcons squad even though the 2023 Women’s World Cup is her first appearance and has managed just 20 caps for the team.

Ahead of the Nigeria vs Australia clash at the Suncorp Stadium in Milton, Australia at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Ifeoma Onumonu reminisced about her performance against Canada and hoped for a better outing against Australia.

She said, “Just trying to get more opportunities like that would be great for us. I’m trying to be efficient at the same time too.

“I hope that in the next game (against Australia on Thursday in Brisbane), we have more opportunities. I think (we’re) just getting out those first-game nerves. I think we’ll watch the game back and I think that we’ll see that we had a little bit more space than we probably thought we did. I’m looking forward to the next game and starting to just play off each other some more.”

On her projection for the game against Australia, Ifeoma Onumonu added, “In this group, every game is going to be hard. I think, watching (Australia’s) game with Ireland, they put up a good fight and they ended up winning with a penalty, so clearly, it’s not as clear-cut as some might have thought it would be.”