Nigeria coach Justin Madugu appears to have opened the door to replacing Nigeria goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie, after she was at fault for Cameroon's winning goal in Sunday's 1-0 Women's Africa Cup of Nations defeat.

The reigning champions were unceremoniously dumped out of the biennial showpiece after Maeva Nyadjou's thundering freekick beat Nnadozie at her near post in the 20th minute of the quarterfinal clash in Casablanca.

While Nnadozie got both hands to the effort, which was struck from 30 yards, she was only able to push the ball into her own net, in a moment that ultimately proved decisive.

"Chiamaka has been a wonderful goalkeeper, not just for the national team, also for her club," head coach Madugu said after the match, "but anyone can make mistakes at any time.

"These [mistakes] can be costly, as it has been for us today, but that's not to say she's a bad goalkeeper."

While offering some support for his goalkeeper, Madugu acknowledged that he would consider the other options in his squad before the team's World Cup 'play-in' against South Africa on Thursday.

"It's natural that when things like this happen, we have to do an overall assessment of the team," Madugu continued, "what went wrong, what we did well, where did we get it wrong.

"We have to do an overall assessment and see what we can do in the shortest possible time before the next game against South Africa.

"There's nothing bad in exploring other players."

Nnadozie's low moment comes after she was criticised by the Nigerian media following her performance in the Super Falcons' opening defeat by Malawi, where her positioning appeared at fault for the Scorchers' three goals.

She kept a clean sheet against Zambia in Nigeria's second game, but conceded twice in the Falcons' final group game as they beat Egypt 6-2.

Nigeria goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie. CAF

As well as registering their worst ever WAFCON finish -- the first time in the tournament's history the Falcons haven't made the final four -- defeat means Nigeria miss out on taking one of Africa's four automatic tickets to the FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil next year.

Instead, they must now defeat South Africa in Casablanca on Thursday in order to advance to FIFA's inter-confederation play-offs, set to take place in November and December this year.

"We get another game, a play-off, and a second chance against South Africa," Madugu added. "We'll go back, watch all of the games, and come up with a plan.

"We cannot afford to miss that second opportunity, we have to give it our best."

While Nigeria by far enjoyed the better of the contest against Cameroon -- taking 19 shots to their opponents' eight -- Madugu appeared to be at a loss to explain his side's defensive troubles, beyond Nnadozie's poor form.

The West African giants have conceded six goals in four matches so far, which is already one more than in the entirety of the last campaign, when they kept four consecutive clean sheets before beating South Africa 2-1 in the semifinal.

"It's still a work in progress, but we have the same players as who played last year, when we weren't conceding goals," Madugu concluded. "It's the same group of players, with only Ashleigh Plumptre missing at leftback.

"It's something that we're worried about, we're doing a lot to try and fix it, but it's work in progress.

"As long as we have the opportunity to explore it, we cannot relax. We have to fix whatever has got us into the fix we're in."

Nigeria have never missed out on the World Cup since the tournament's inauguration in 1991, but having featured at all nine editions to date, would miss out entirely if they fail to beat South Africa in Casablanca on Thursday to keep their hopes alive.

Cameroon now advance to face Morocco in Wednesday's first WAFCON semifinal in Rabat, with Algeria and Malawi set to meet in the Moroccan capital later in the evening. (ESPN)

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