WHEN THE SUPER FALCONS WERE DOWN

JOSHUA J. OMOJUWA urges Nigerians to support their own, no matter the situation

I was with a few friends as the Super Falcons went down 2-0 to Morocco. Mission X, the one where Nigeria gets to win its tenth Women African Nations Cup (WAFCON), was now fully in danger. One nil was bad enough as this was against a formidable host that had lost the previous final to South Africa, but two nil looked like a herculean task to negotiate. I started to hope that we’d at least score a goal before half time. As the half went on, a couple of friends started to debate and were going to make a bet. One said it was a done deal, that Morocco could not lose from the position they had found themselves. The other, a military man, said he was ready to have a bet on the Falcons. N10m from each person. Then yet another friend knocked that option off the table.

I thought, and I said so, these are the Super Falcons, they are the supreme team of this tournament across decades. One whole half of football was enough time for them to recover. I believed they could. On social media, there were some Nigerians already jubilating a loss that was yet to be. They said the president getting himself involved with them had brought them ill luck. They hoped the Super Falcons would even concede more. It was an endless barrage of self-hate masking as trolling.

Some joked, saying the support shown to the team by government officials had doomed them. What I saw was less about football and more about frustration turned inward. It is one of those conversations that somehow get to be infiltrated by people’s political leaning. It was once said that Nigerians were united by football. I don’t know how much of this was true but it is certainly less true these days.

Trolling one’s country whilst pretending it was against its leaders. This wasn’t just harmless fun, it was self-hate, masked as stale humor. When some people begin to delight in their own loss whilst being blind to same, something deeper is at play. It’s not just the football that’s broken. It’s the belief that nothing good can come from us. And that is more dangerous than a 2–0 halftime scoreline. It is also a resignation of national identity, that they do not belong in the prosperity or failings of Nigeria as long as the country was not bending to their desires.

We must remind ourselves that the Super Falcons have carried Nigeria for decades. Nine WAFCON titles. Consistent appearances at the Women’s World Cup. They’ve done this with minimal support, low media coverage compared to the male team, and at times underwhelming institutional backing. While the men’s team has often commanded the headlines and budgets, it is the women who have consistently delivered better results.

And yet, the moment they fell behind, they were not just criticized, they were ridiculed. They faced criticism during the group stage too. They had become a victim of their own success, winning was no longer enough, how they won became a source of criticism. Drawing Algeria despite already six points good from the first two games was deemed a crime. There were people who started to knock the appointment of coach Justine Madugu. In the end, the ladies had the last laugh. And they are now laughing to the bank, thanks to President Bola Tinubu rewarding them with $100,000 each, not to mention their national honours, OON and other rewards.

One truth stings: you are only loved when you win. Athletes are celebrated when they triumph and abandoned when they stumble. And in the digital age, this abandonment comes quickly.

Football is never just a game here. It is the one arena where class, ethnicity, and religion blur, where a barber in Kano can scream the same goal celebration as a banker in Lagos. When the Falcons play, it is not only about sport. It is about national spirit. I hope it stays this way.

That is why the stakes feel higher, and the criticisms cut deeper. It is also why, when fans turn against their own, it feels like a collapse of something sacred. The Falcons didn’t just go down in that first half. We did too. Because in those moments, some stopped believing. Support is not only for when things are going well. True support is shown in adversity. The Super Falcons did not owe us a win. But we owed them faith, especially given what they have done for us over the years.

We need to rethink what it means to be a fan. It is not just buying jerseys and tweeting goal highlights. It is standing up for our players when they are down. It is holding sports administrators accountable, not just the players. It is pushing for respectful treatment of women’s teams and calling out disparities in investment. That night against Morocco, the Super Falcons gave us more than a football match. They gave us a lesson in persistence. In dignity. In refusing to give up when others had already stopped cheering.

Their performance reminded us that you do not need to win to be worthy of respect. You only need to fight with everything you have. Even if they didn’t lift the trophy that night, they already lifted the mirror to our collective mindset. And what we saw was uncomfortable at times.

When the Super Falcons were down, many of us gave up. But they didn’t. They kept going. And that’s the story we should be telling. Nigeria is full of people who get up every morning and try again despite the odds. Our athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens embody that quiet resilience. The least we can do is believe in them, even when the scoreboard doesn’t look good. If we are ever going to rise as a nation, it will not be because we never fell behind. It will be because we learned how to respond when we did. That’s a lesson we can take from the success of Mission X.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing