The first two weeks of October have been busy ones for some of the women at CD Tacon. Kosovare Assllani, Sofia Jakobsson, Thaisa, Daiane, and Osinachi Ohale were all called up to represent their nations. While Brazil played friendlies, Sweden played in the UEFA Women’s Championship Qualifiers and Nigeria played in the CAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. (Spain and Azerbaijan also played in the UEFA Women’s Championship Qualifiers, but neither country called up their national players on CD Tacon for this round of matches.)

Sweden

• As you can expect, both of our Swedes were called up for their national team’s UEFA Women’s Championship Qualification Round games.
• Kosovare and Sofia each featured in both of Sweden’s blowouts this round. Their first match was on October 4^th: a 5-0 victory over Hungary. Both players started, but only Sofia played the full 90 minutes. She scored Sweden’s fourth goal. Sofia also assisted on the third goal of the match. Asllani was subbed out in the 82^nd minute for striker Loreta Kullashi after assisting on the first two goals of the game.
• Sweden’s next game was a 7 - 0 victory over Slovakia in front of a home crowd in Gothenburg, Sweden. Once again both started, but this time both got their full 90 minutes. Jaskobsson neither scored nor assisted in this match, but Asllani was far and away the star. She netted her first goal in the 26^th minute, and went on to assist on three of the remaining six goals.
• The next match on their schedule is against the US in Columbus on November 7^th.

Brazil

• Both Thaisa and Daiane were called up for their friendlies against England (in Middlesbrough) and Poland (in Kielce).
• For their game against England, a 2-1 victory, both women were in the squad, but only Thaisa saw minutes. She came on in the 71^st minute to replace fellow midfielder Formiga, after Debinha’s brace was complete.
• On October 8^th, they faced Poland in a 3-1 win. Both women started the match and Daiane played the full 90 minutes. Thaisa came out in the 46^th minute, replaced by Luana.
• At the time of this piece, another game is not listed as scheduled for them.

Nigeria

Unfortunately, this isn’t a fun one to write about. After having missed out on the last two Olympics, the female Super Falcons were looking forward to putting the past behind and finally qualifying. Our defender, Osinachi Ohale (one of three Nigerians playing in Spain), was called up for both matches. The first match was 0-0 draw with the Ivory Coast on October 3^rd. The Super Falcons were heavily favoured to win the second match in front of home crowd and move on in qualifying. However, Ivory Coast scored in the 12^th minute and while Nigeria could equalize, they couldn’t find that last goal they needed to win the game and advance. The Ivory Coast knocked Nigeria out in a 1-1 draw, advancing on away goals.