Theย Super Falcons forward, Asisat Oshoala said Nigeria did not play with the best team in the Tokyo 2020 CAF Womenโs Olympic Games Qualifiers, following a third successive botched campaign in October.
The African champions made an exciting start to the year with a third-place finish at the Chinese Invitational in January, before an enterprising debut at the Cyprus Womenโs Cup a month later.
Thereafter, Thomas Dennerbyโs side held their own against Canada in Aprilโs international friendly in Spain before another superb display to win a maiden WAFU Womenโs Cup of Nations title in May.
The Super Falcons earned a fourth-ever win with Oshoalaโs winner helping them earn a 2-1 win over South Korea at the World Cup in France as they progressed to the knockout stage for the first time in 20 years.
However, first-team players like Desire Oparanozie, Rita Chikwelu, Halimatu Ayinde and Onome Ebi were left out of the countryโs Olympic qualifying series for administrative reasons.
Despite edging past Algeria, they later bowed out against Cote dโIvoire, and the striker feels the absence of some experienced players ruined their dreams for next yearโs Olympic Games.
โIn the Olympic Qualifiers, we did our best to qualify, but, obviously, we didnโt have our best team,โ Oshoala told Goal.
โOur best team didnโt play the qualifying games. I was there and we missed a lot of players from the Womenโs World Cup who didnโt feature in the Olympic qualifying matches.
โI think that if we are going to be building a team and really wanted to go to the Olympics, the players we had were not experienced enough.
โThere were a lot of young players, maybe, they were trying to build the team, but I think experience counts a lot in games that involve two legs and then itโs a knockout.
โA lot of experienced players were not part of the team and it actually added to the reason why we didnโt qualify.
Oshoala featured in the second leg against Algeria and scored Nigeriaโs only goal at the Agege Stadium to help the country advance to the third round of the series 3-0 on aggregate.
THE SUN
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