Unable to secure travel visas to the United States, Nigeria's women's national team has dropped out of Saturday's exhibition match against the U.S. women at RFK Stadium in Washington and been replaced by Canada.
The Nigerians earlier had canceled a pair of closed-door friendlies with the Canadians scheduled for last week in South Carolina.
''We gave Nigeria every opportunity to process their paperwork with the U.S. Consulate in Lagos,'' U.S. Soccer Secretary General Dan Flynn said in a statement. ''They've had more than six weeks to make the proper travel arrangements since we first announced the match in early March, but their delay in the procedure has precluded them from traveling in a timely way for such an important match in our Women's World Cup preparation.
''Although we have given Nigeria every opportunity to make this game happen, and it is a game we very much wanted to play as part of our preparation, it is our good fortune that the match can still go on as scheduled, with Canada traveling into D.C. on short notice.''
Nigeria and Canada also have qualified for next fall's Women's World Cup in China.
Saturday's match, the opener of a doubleheader at RFK, will be the second meeting between CONCACAF's top two powers since the Americans' overtime win at last fall's Gold Cup in Pasadena, Calif. The Americans and Canadians tied, 1-1, in an opener last month at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.
''Every time we play Canada, we know we are going to be challenged to the extreme,'' U.S. coach April Heinrichs said. ''The most important thing for us in looking at our Women's World Cup preparation is to play games, and there is no question that any game against a World Cup opponent like Canada will be great preparation for our players.
''We don't feel like we played our best against them in the tie in Portugal, so this will be a great chance to improve on that game.''
The U.S.-Canada match will be televised live on ESPN2 at noon ET. The Washington Freedom and Atlanta Beat will meet in a clash of WUSA unbeatens at 2:30 p.m. ET in the second game of the doubleheader. It will be shown on PAX TV on tape delay at 4 p.m. ET.
Canada's team disbanded Sunday after playing exhibitions against Clemson University and the Greenville FC U-18 boys, and Coach Even Pellerud on Wednesday was frantically trying to arrange his players' releases from their clubs for Saturday's game, a Canadian Soccer Association spokesman said.
Five Canadians play in the WUSA: goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc with Boston, defender Breanna Boyd with Carolina, defender Sharolta Nonen and forward Charmaine Hooper with Atlanta, and forward Christine Latham with San Diego. Several others are students at U.S. universities, three are in high school, and two — midfielders Randee Hermus and Kristina Kiss — play for Floya in the Norway's top women's league.