Ghana's Youth Team Arrives

Nairobi (Kenya) -- The Ghanaian under-17 team arrived in Nairobi yesterday morning for their 2003 Africa Under-17 Championship qualifier against Kenya on Saturday.

The squad of 18 players and five officials arrived at 6 am and held their first training session at the Utalii training ground.

The team's head coach, Silas Tetteh, said on arrival they would aim for a win on Saturday to make the return match in Ghana on January 12 a formality.

He said the players he brought with him all play in Ghana's lower division leagues.

The Ghanaian coach had earlier bemoaned the lack information on his Kenyan opponents. Tetteh was quoted on a Ghanaian website, Ghanaweb.com, saying the only information they had on their opponents was their physique as well as the weather conditions prevailing in Kenya. But he said they were upto the task as they had prepared well for the qualifier.

Tetteh said his team had scored an average goal of four goals in each of the friendly matches it had played and this showed that the attack had some bite. He added that more friendly matches would be organised for the team before they face the Kenyans in the return leg.

The Kenyan defence will have to be alert against the Ghanaian attack which appears to be rampant in front of goal. Two weeks ago, they whipped their Burkina Faso counterparts 4-1 in a friendly match at the Stade de Municipal in Ougadugou.

Emmanuel Allan, Douglas Nkrumah, Shaibu Yakubu and Felix Baffour were the the scorers for Ghana.

The team played friendlies against local club Accra Hearts of Oak, Etoile Filante of Togo and the Cote d'Ivoire U-17 side before they travelled to Nairobi.

At Kasarani, the Kenyan players continued their preparations and were in good spirits after being issued with new soccer boots.

Head coach Tom Olaba said he would name his starting team tomorrow.

He said for the players, playing Ghana, one of the top teams in world youth football, were determined to upset the visitors.

"We respect Ghana, we know they are good at the youth level but we do not fear them," he said.

The Kenyans will be buoyed by the success of the national soccer team which beat Tanzania 3-2 in the final last Saturday to win the Council of East and Central African Football Associations Senior Challenge Cup for the first time in 19 years.