I started football playing in skirts

Super Falcons and Rivers Angels forward, Stella Mbachu, talks about her career, the challenges of women football in Nigeria and more in this interview with ’TANA AIYEJINA

What are you doing at the moment?

I am still with my club in Port Harcourt, but I hope to embark on a coaching course in the near future. I hope to go into coaching when I retire from the game.

Can you tell us how your football journey started?

I won’t say I went into football by accident. Anything you want to do in life, somebody must put you through. You can’t just jump into what you don’t know; it will be difficult to have a breakthrough. I believe my involvement in football was ordained by God. I never knew I will get this far though. There was a man, a boxing coach, in my village, who saw me when I was playing football with my brothers. He identified the talent in me, approached me and told me to come to the stadium to train with a new club that they just formed. I thought about it but I didn’t want to go because I was always busy whenever I returned from school, helping my mother with the household chores. But one day, I decided to go and see what they were doing at the stadium; I didn’t go there to train. But the coach saw me and said, ‘No, you must train with us, even though you don’t have kits to train with us. You can use the skirt you have on to train.’ So, I trained with my skirt on that day, all the coaches saw me and they approached my principal, so that I would be allowed to join them. That was how I started.

Can you recall your first major game as a footballer?

It was an FA Cup match. They wrote to my school for release to play the game. I didn’t know much about football then; all I was doing was just go out, play and enjoy myself. I was in school and my principal called me and said, ‘Look at what God has done for you. They have asked for your release to join the Imo State team that will play the FA Cup.’ My God, I didn’t know what was FA Cup! I was looking at the floor. The man gave me the release letter to show to my parents. I showed my mother the letter, because my father was not around. She didn’t know what football was all about. So, my mother showed the letter to my uncle and he was very happy. He said, ‘She (Stella) needs to go.’ He came to me and encouraged me, saying football was part of education, because it would afford me the opportunity to travel all over the country to play and learn new things. So, I joined the team in the sports council in Owerri. We were there for one week and we did well in my zone, which was under Port Harcourt. That was how it all started.

Did your parents support you as a girl to play football?

When I started, my mother didn’t disturb me but a month after I sustained an injury, she said I won’t play football anymore. My father was in Lagos then, but my uncles encouraged her to let me play. My father didn’t stop me either; he just prayed for me. Later, my mother decided to allow me to play the game.

When did you get the breakthrough into Super Falcons?

The breakthrough came in 1998, when I played my first African Women Championship, hosted by Nigeria. We beat Ghana 2-0 in Abeokuta and I scored the second goal.

How did you feel, being called up for the first time into the national team?

I love to play football; I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was still in secondary school. All that was in my head was how to play well, so that people would come and watch me. The first time I got to camp, I made the team and I started playing immediately. The coach then, Ismaila Mabo, was always introducing me in the second half and I would go in and do my best.

Your first Women’s World Cup was in 1999, which is the Falcons best performance ever at the competition. But you lost a game to hosts USA 7-1 in the group stage…

Yes, that was my first outing at the event. We were leading 1-0 before they came back and scored those goals. We had three points before that game, because we had beaten North Korea 2-1 in our first game. So I was sure we would qualify from our group. When we played the US, we played against the home crowd and the referee. So, when we lost, I wasn’t discouraged. I knew Denmark, our last group opponents, won’t be a problem for us. We needed to beat them to qualify in our final group game and we did, winning 2-0.

It was the first and only time that the Falcons qualified for the quarterfinals of the event. Against Brazil, the team was 3-0 down but fought back and drew 3-3 at a point before the Brazilians scored a Golden Goal winner in extra time…

We fell back and levelled up; taking the game to extra time but the Golden Goal rule was in existence then and the Brazilians scored and the game came to an end. Nobody gave us a chance of a comeback. You know, people say Falcons always go to the World Cup to concede many goals but that World Cup was different. We proved our critics wrong and reached the quarterfinals. That was the first time the team will advance from their group to the knockout stage of the competition. I was happy because that was my first appearance; we were the new players introduced into the team. I am still happy that it was my own time that the Flacons reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

Was women football developed when you started playing for the Falcons?

The game was developed then because Ghana and Cameroon gave us tough times then; they were very powerful in Africa. Anytime we played them, it was like playing against European opposition. Some countries like Congo were also coming up but they were not consistent. What helped us was consistency, even though players welfare was not at its best. We kept on going despite the lapses.

The last time Nigeria won the AWC was in 2010 and you emerged the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. Was it the highlight of your career?

I was actually determined to play my heart out in that tournament because we lost the title we won in 2006 to Equatorial Guinea in 2008, though I didn’t attend that competition. So, a lot of us were determined to get the cup back. We trained a lot, our preparation was fantastic and even though there were some problems in the Nigeria Football Federation then, before we left, we were resolute in making the country proud. So, I was not surprised that I was named the tournament’s MVP.

But female football in Nigeria has been on the decline with the likes of Equatorial Guinea and South Africa giving the Falcons a run for their money…

I don’t think it’s the fault of the players. I think it has to do with the people saddled with the responsibility of taking care of women’s football in the country. Women’s football is not growing; look at the league, there are no sponsors. Then when we were doing well, there were lots of sponsors for the Falcons. When we wanted to go for competitions, we didn’t just gather and train, like you have now. Our welfare was fantastic, the sponsors put us in good hotels and we trained for months before we went back home. That is why it’s very difficult to identify new talents these days. These days, its fire brigade approach to competitions. Even the NFF is not doing enough to make sure the league is thriving. If sponsors stay away, the game will continue to go down. They call the women’s league here professional but when you see teams play, it looks amateurish. It shouldn’t be so. Other African countries have their own challenges but they are challenging us. We need something to be done; they should take care of the players and bring in sponsors, so that preparations for competitions will be easy.

There have been several stories about lesbianism in the Super Falcons. How true are these stories?

The stories are rubbish; I don’t know why we celebrate negative things. The stories are not true. I have heard such stories. Lesbianism is common among females all over the world; it’s not just footballers alone. Because people have this ideology, when they see two players together in camp, they say they are lesbians. That is a bad idea. I know it exists, I won’t deny it but I haven’t come across it. It doesn’t happen in the Falcons camp; maybe after camping those involved may carry their actions out. After camp, everybody can go and live their lives but not in the camp.

Who would you prefer, a male or female coach, to manage the women national teams?

Both are good because some of the men have managed women club sides and they know the attitude of women, how we behave. But when I will disagree is when you bring in a man who doesn’t know anything about female football. It will not be easy for the person to perform. For the women, coaching the national teams will be a very good encouragement for them as well.

What is your advice to up-and-coming young women footballers?

They need to dedicate themselves to the game, be disciplined and be committed. They must drop their pride; they shouldn’t assume they have arrived. They should work hard as well; they shouldn’t rely on general training. They should develop themselves on their own. If you play very well, people will commend you. If they do all these, the sky will be their limit.

People say sportswomen don’t make good wives…

It’s not true. Anybody who says that, hasn’t seen a woman footballer that he loves. At least three of my club players got married in the last one year. One has been delivered of a baby and the other two are pregnant. They have changed; they no longer look like footballers. If you leave football for three months as a woman, your physique will change. Footballers make good wives. I thank God that most men have started knowing that such insinuations are not true and are attracted to women footballers. A lot of girls in my club are engaged. Between now and December, a lot of them will get married. Things have changed. Are they marrying beauty or character? Is it not good behavior that people look out for in a woman? Anyway, no woman is ugly.

What are your best and worst moments as a footballer?

My best are when I am on the pitch and winning games, while my worst is losing. I don’t like losing.

Compare and contrast men and women’s football in Nigeria.

Both are not on level terms, men have the upper hand both in the national team and club sides.