Ghana U-17 team poised to win African championship

By Alex Osei-Boateng/Xinhua News Agency

Ghana's Black Starlets, the nation' s U-17 team, are beaming with confidence with few weeks to the kickoff of the African Championship in Morocco on April 13. The junior team, which is currently camping at the Ghanaman Soccer Center of Excellence in Prampram in the Greater Accra Region (Province), is in high spirits and poised to win the African trophy for the third time, according to Head Coach Paa Kwesi Fabin.

"The expectation of every coach going into any competition is to prepare well and win," Paa Kwesi Fabin told Xinhua in an interview on Friday. Despite its dominance at the junior level in the 1990s, Ghana has not performed very well in the recent past, particularly after the 2007 African tournament. But Fabin said it is his wish to win the trophy for Ghana and go ahead to annex the world title as his predecessors have done in the past.

"So, we are preparing seriously for that and we know that, with God on our side, we will go very far in the tournament. My team is well-conditioned and well-prepared; that is our trump card," he said.

The last time Ghana qualified for the African U-17 championship was in 2007 when the coaching crew was headed by Sellas Tetteh. The team finished third in Togo after beating Tunisia in the third and fourth play-off match, only to be beaten by rival Nigeria in the semi finals. With the defending champions, Burkina Faso, missing out of the tournament, Ghana and Nigeria, the most successful nations in this level of the game on African soil, will be hoping to add to their tally of two trophies each.

Ghana has made it to the finals three times in 1995, 1999 and 2005, with Nigeria making it in 1995, 2001 and 2007.

"We are very sure to win the U-17 African trophy," said Isaac Adade 'Opeele' Boateng, deputy coach of the Starlets.

He said he and his boss had traveled to spy on the other teams who would play in the competition and had mounted and arranged the vital and suitable strategy and tactics to counter their system. "We just pray and hope that all the factors in football like the weather condition, officiating and player injuries will be in our favor, and we are going to make sure we employ the right tactics to overcome our opponents," he said.

"We have watched them and we know what we can do to counter their system and tactics. I believe if we are able to do that, we should be able to bring the cup home," the young coach said.

The Black Starlets are in Group B, alongside bitterest rivals, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Congo. Hosts Morocco, Botswana, Gabon and Tunisia make up Group A. Analysts see Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire as the sides that can stymie Ghana's quest for third African trophy as a result of their physical type, strength and tactical savvy. But Starlets' midfielder David Atanga, a product of Red Bull Academy in Sogakope, some 114 km of the capital, believes the team has the ability to beat any side it faces as the championship progresses.

"I think the two teams in our group, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, have the physique and strength and are technically good but I think we can beat them easily through the training that we are doing here. The training is our key to success," the youngster said.

The team will leave Ghana on March 25 for a two-week training of Egypt and Spain to fine-tune before the tournament kick-starts in April. The four semi-finalists from the African championship will qualify for the 2013 U-17 World Cup which takes off on October 17 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).