Nigeria’s Super Falcons suffered a heavy loss in their first match of the Cyprus Women’s Cup in Larnaca as Austria defeated the African side 4 – 1.

The Super Falcons went into their opening game of the tourney boosted with the duo of Barcelona’s Assisat Oshoala and Guincamp’s Desire Oparonozie who were absent from the team at the China Invitational Tourney in January.

Unfortunately, the Falcons lost a major advantage in Goalkeeper Tochukwu Oluehi who got sent off in the fifth minute of the game due to a serious foul play.

The 2018 African Champions resiliently managed to finish the first 45 minutes of the encounter level without conceding but Burger and Billa’s strikes in the 48^th and 59^th minute saw Thomas Dennerby’s side two goals down.

Former African Women Player of the year, Assisat later reduced the goal deficit in the 65th minute, but two other goals from Laura Feiersinger and Klein condemned Nigeria to their third defeat of the year  in all competitions.

Nigeria will hope to fix up lapses soon enough as they face Slovakia in their second group game on Friday.