Nigeria Restores Order To African Women's Football

Winning their 9th title at the CAF African Women's Championship, Nigeria restored their old order at the top of women's football on the continent, and regained the dominance they had lost in the last tournament in 2012.

Good news out of the tournament was that also making the qualifications behind Nigeria to next year's World Cup will be Cameroon and Ivory Coast, two newcomers to that stage of competition - an always refreshing turn of events to see a diversification amongst competitors at the top of the podium. I doubt either of them, or Nigeria for that matter, will make much of a threat in Canada, but it'll still be great to see them make their debut.

I actually think it's also nice to see the absence of Equatorial Guinea, which is a team notoriously filled with transplants and newly established citizens. In fact, they didn't even qualify for the African finals after winning in 2012 (they're the only non-Nigerian titlists). I'm all for smaller countries making good, but I cringe when dictatorships try to buy their way to athletic stardom through buying athletes. (Um, my next rant may be at the Arabian peninsula)

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