In 2021, four years after Brigitte Tonon led Benin’s Men’s national basketball team to the FIBA AfroBasket regional qualifiers, Liz Mills became the first woman named as head Coach of a men’s national team – or any men’s team for that matter – to an international competition in Africa.
Mills guided Kenya to the second round of the AfroBasket in February and her feat just like that of Tonon years before, is blazing the trail for the incursion of women into what was hitherto an exclusive Men-only club.
That stereotype still exists in football, the greatest sport in the world, but what if one of the biggest football teams in Africa opted to break that ceiling?
On Wednesday, former African Women’s footballer of the year and two-time FIFA World All-Star Mercy Akide-Udoh implied she could throw her hat in for the Super Eagles job.
In an interview on Brila FM, while speaking on her coaching career – which happened out of the blues – the 46 year-old and current Head Coach, Regent University Women’s Soccer team spoke on her early Coaching inspirations and her dedication to also empower the girl child back home.
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While she, relatively, remains on the fringes of the Super Falcons job conversation, a team she represented for over a decade, Akide-Udoh welcomed the prospect of considering the Eagles coaching job.
‘My coaching career wasn’t planned, it just happened through divine manifestation and my College Coach at the time. I started Coaching young girls in one of the summer clinics back in college,’ she explained.
Speaking on the next phase of her coaching career, the three-time African Women’s Cup of Nations winner, encouraged by her husband, said she could consider the Super Eagles job.
‘I have to help the girls first. I’m taking it one step at a time. Whenever the opportunity comes I will take it.’
She is also focused on building her Play-to-Learn foundation, whose goal is the empowerment of the girl child in Nigeria.
The Play-to-Learn initiative was founded after her playing career, during her early years in college.
