Bad weather conditions caused our defeat to Mali at U-17 World Cup- Ibrahim Danlad

Former Ghana U-17 goalkeeper Ibrahim Danlad, has blamed the Black Starlets defeat to Mali at the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in India to poor weather conditions.

The Black Starlets had to play the game on a waterlogged pitch at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Guwahati against Mali in the quarter-finals.

There were calls by both teams to postpone the game due to the bad nature of the pitch.

However, organizers of the competition ignored those calls and went ahead with the first quarter-final game between the two West African giants.

“Our passing game wasn’t following because of the soggy pitch. Even it was due to an error made by one of our players that led to the opening goal because of the pitch. On that particular day if the weather conditions were favourable to us, we could have won the game”, Danlad told Akonoba FM on the nature of the pitch which contributed to Ghana’s defeat.

“Due to the height of the Malians we had to result to square passes but it was impossible because of the bad nature of the pitch”, he added.

After the game, both coaches also admitted to the fact that the poor weather conditions affected their game plans ahead of the game.

Mali were able to adapt better which saw them eliminate the Black Starlets from the tournament.

Hadji Drame and Djemoussa Traore scored to hand the Malians a 2-1 win.

Kudus Mohammed fetched Ghana's consolation from the spot.