Black Starlets coach reserves ‘Special 6’ for World Cup

Coach of the Black Starlets, Paa Kwesi Fabin, has reserved automatic World Cup places for six “special” players whose names were omitted from his 25-man squad to commence camping on Tuesday in preparation for this year’s FIFA Under-17 Championship.

For Coach Fabin, the “special six”, who were among Ghana’s stand-out players at this year’s African Under-17 championship in Gabon, have cemented their place in his provisional 26-man team for the October 6-28 tournament in India.

The six players — goalkeeper Danlad Ibrahim, Najeeb Yakubu, Emmanuel Toku, Rashid Alhassan, Abdul Razak Yusif and Patmos Arhin — are expected to report to camp at the Ghanaman Soccer Centre of Excellence at Prampram on Sunday to join their teammates for preparations towards the global competition.

In an interview with the Graphic Sports, Coach Fabin explained that he deliberately replaced the six players with others who needed to justify their inclusion for the world stage.

"There are special players in every team just like the Starlets side. I left the six players out of the team to give opportunity to the others to justify their inclusion," he explained.

"These players will join the team on Sunday after I have pruned the current ones”.

"Ahead of the continental competition, we invited some players from WAFA and Right to Dream but were not able to get them so I decided to monitor them now before taking a decision," Coach Fabin disclosed.

When asked if any of the players who participated in the African Championship might be dropped, the Starlets trainer said everyone was required to be fit and in shape to be able to make the final team.

He stated that any player who was not in shape at the time of selection would be automatically dropped from the final 21-man team for the competition.