Matters Arising: Where is Randy Waldrum!
His appointment kissed the headlines with a bang from conventional all round newspapers to solely sports papers and online publications.
His appointment was coming about twelve months after predecessor Thomas Dennerby dumped the job to take up U-17 coaching job with India, hosts of the now cancelled 2021 Women U-17 world cup.
I am talking about Randy Waldrum appointed by the Nigeria Football Federation to replace Dennerby to prepare Super Falcons for the next African Women Championship on one hand and the next FIFA women World cup to be hosted by Australia and New Zealand an in 2023 on the other.
The 64-year-old who is no stranger to the women’s game on the global stage having served as the US U23 coach and head coach of the Trinidad and Tobago team from 2014 to 2016, will according to the NFF be assisted by former Nigeria goalkeeper Ann Chiejine as the first assistant coach, Wemimo Olanrewaju as the second assistant and Auwar Bashir Makwalla as goalkeeper trainer.
Before the appointment, Waldrum was the University of Pittsburgh women’s head coach, a job he took immediately after rejecting the Nigerian offer in December 2017.
Ironically the speed with which the news of his appointment hit the newsstand was the same speed with which the story died down like a one slot announcement.
Only few days ago the Nigeria football federation released list of Super Falcons players to partake in US Tour that will see the team engage Jamaica on the 10th of June, Portugal on the 14th of June and USA on the 17 june in what has been dubbed Summer series .
No doubt it is a well thought out program to enable the players converge and blend especially since the team missed an opportunity to play in the forthcoming Olympics in Tokyo.
Commenting on the appointment of the American who played in his days as a midfielder, Amaju Pinnick, the NFF president, voiced his belief the Pittsburgh-born coach has what it takes to excel with the senior national team.
“The predominance of the Super Falcons on the African continent has never been in doubt, with nine titles out of 11 editions of the Women AFCON competitions held so far,” he told the NFF website.
“We envision a new Super Falcons squad competing favourably for laurels at the global level, and I believe the new technical crew led by Mr. Waldrum can take us to that level.”
Waldrum has been tasked to lead the Super Falcons through two major campaigns, the African Women’s Cup of Nations which double as the qualifying event for the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Well it does appear that with the naming of players and fixing friendlies with Jamaica, Portugal and USA the shape up or better put preparation for coming tournaments has started. But where is Randy Waldrum? Will he be joining the Falcons in back home in USA?
Methinks that it is good to ask these questions early and get the answers early so as avoid stories that touch where a coach or indeed a player will say complain of not being carried along all in an effort to avoid blame for poor or non-performance.
NFF Director of Communications Demola Olajire told Sportinglife.ng Sunday that the contract of the American is still intact but could not say whether he will be joining the camp during the tour.