2024 IHF Women’s U-18 Championship: Nigeria’s Babatunde Blames Inexperience For Team’s Struggles

Nigeria’s national women’s U-18 handball team’s left-back, Taiwo Babatunde, has attributed her team’s first two Group B losses against Croatia and Montenegro at the ongoing 2024 International Handball Federation (IHF) Women’s Championship in Chuzhou, China, to a lack of experience.

Nigeria’s first two losses have placed the country on the brink of elimination at the preliminary stage of the 10th IHF Women’s U-18 Championship.

Speaking with the IHF media team, Babatunde also acknowledged her team’s head coach, Agboola Shittu’s efforts to train and motivate them to make a statement in the tournament.

“Our coach is also making us play the best we can; therefore, we must respect what he says. We are not that experienced, but we were quite good in the African Championship last year, and we are trying to give our best every time here,” Babatunde said.

However, she described the tournament as a learning curve for her team, saying that the experience gained will help them improve.

“It is an amazing experience for us, and we are trying to learn as much as we can here to become even better. Last year, we were in our continental competition; now we are at the World Championship, and we are aiming to become even better,” she said.

As Croatia and Montenegro have progressed to the main round, Nigeria will feature in the President’s Cup alongside Angola, Chile, and one of Serbia, Austria, or Sweden.

These will be, once again, tough matches, but Babatunde, who has scored five of Nigeria’s goals in the first two matches, expressed optimism that her team could perform better.

As for her dreams, Babatunde aims high.

“I want to become a professional handball player, play for a European side, and become a businesswoman,” she said.