SPORT:Nigeria will pose problems – Wambach

Abby Wambach

USA women’s national team captain, Abby Wambach, is wary of the threat the Super Falcons might pose when both sides meet in the early hours of Wednesday in their last group game at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada.

The Americans top Group D with four points, while Nigeria are bottom of the log with one point. All four teams, including Sweden and Australia, still have the chance of progressing to the next round. But Wambach believes her team have what it takes to remain group leaders.

“They (Nigeria) are a physically capable team; they’re fast and strong. For us, we have to weather some of their speed, maybe for the first 45 minutes,” Wambach, the most capped player at the tournament, told FOX Sports.

“Frankly speaking, I think we have a deep bench, we have the ability to change our line-up if our coaching staff so chooses, and the game won’t be much different.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We need to get a result; we have to be number one in our group, it has been our goal since we found out about our group. If we give ourselves the best opportunity to do that, it’ll instil so much confidence.

“We have to be very organised in our back because they have very fast forwards, technical forwards, that we’ve seen score great goals against very good teams.

“We have people that are prepared for everything against Nigeria, especially [because] we don’t know much about them.

“They are a young team. We have been scouting them since the start of the tournament. They’re going to pose problems for us. What we saw in the Sweden game, may not be clearly good goal-scoring opportunities, so from the attacking perspective, I want good goal-scoring opportunities against Nigeria.”

The 35-year-old forward called for patience in her team, believing that a perfect composure against the Super Falcons would bring in the goals.

She said, “There’re so many games to play at this World Cup, [so] we have to be patient; we can’t force goals to happen. We have to work for them; we have to play good soccer. We believe those chances will come, [so] we have to be patient throughout the game.

“I think for us, we know that our destiny is in our control. If we win, we go on as number one in our group. It’s absolutely in our control. We have to make sure we play good soccer.”