Nigeria’s senior women football team, Super Falcons have emerged champions of Africa again after beating Cameroon 1-0 in the finals of the 2016 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations on Saturday, December 3, 2016.
Desire Oparanozie scored the only goal that saw the Falcons beat the Indomitable Lionesses in a tension-soaked final match played at the Ahmadou Ahidjo Omnisports Stadium in Yaoundé.
The win has seen Nigeria secure their eight African title even as coach of the Nigeria team, Omagbemi became the second individual to win the AWCON as a player and a coach.
The team escaped a tragedy during this championship on Wednesday, when 5 members of the Super Falcons were able to escape a possible plane crash ahead of this year’s African Women’s Cup of Nations final.
Nigerian Bulletin reports that the players were forced to travel by road from Duoala to Yaounde on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 as the aircraft they were meant to fly with developed electrical fault shortly before take off.
It was gathered the team was scheduled to leave Douala at 9am, for a 45-minute flight to Yaounde but CAF could not secure seats for the players.
Florence Omagbemi’s ladies arrived at the airport, along with their South African counterparts who play Ghana’s Black Queens in third-place match.
On getting to Douala airport, CAF officials could not secure enough seats for the entire Nigerian team on one plane and the remaining five were checked in for another flight which eventually did not fly.
“The team experienced some delay at the airport, but at the end, all the players and officials could not travel together in one plane because it was a small aircraft which could not accommodate both Nigeria and the South African team at the same time. As a result, five members of the team were left behind,” a member of the team told the Guardian.
“Those five people were later checked into another plane, but just as they were preparing to commence the journey to Yaoundé, smoke started coming out from the plane due to electrical problem and everybody was evacuated. The five people had to embark on their journey by road to Yaoundé.”
This incident is coming less than 24 hours players of Brazilian club Chapecoense were involved in a plane crash on their way to the Copa Sudemerica final against Atletico Naconial match in Colombia.
