Sunday 12 June 2016
Ghana vs Ethiopia
Venue: Cape Coast Stadium
Kick-off: 3:00pm

Black Satellites will host their Ethiopian counterparts on Sunday at the newly built Cape Coast Sports Stadium on Sunday in the return leg of the qualifier with Ghana trailing the Ethiopians by  2 goals to 1. The current crop of U-20 players will be hoping to emulate the class of 2009 who won both the African and World Cup.

PREVIOUS MEETING:

Ghana went down 2-0 under 10 minutes, but an 88th minute consolation means Ghana return with something of an advantage ahead of the second leg. Mohammed Ome was quickest to finish off an attack from the side from the horn of Africa with a strike in the 4th minute. While Ghana made to catch their breath, their hosts struck again five minutes later through the same player. Later in the second half, Jonathan Osabutey nicked a vital away goal that may prove decisive.

Key Players:

The Black Satellies will be counting on Kotoko striker Dauda Mohammed to be their focal point upfront as well as provide the main goalscoring threat. The Kotoko striker has been in rich vein of form contrubuting 7 goals in his last 7 games for the Porcupine Warriors.

His supporting cast will include the Inter Allies trio of  Kwame Baah, Isaac Twum and Evans Mensah. Baah is expected to start in goal while Isaac Twum will pull the strings in midfield with Evans Mensah creating magic from a wide role.

The team have been boosted by the addition of Yaw Yeboah who won the best player at the African Youth Championship in Senegal.

MANAGER QUOTES

Black Satellites coach, Mas-ud Didi Dramani has set sights on qualifying the team ahead of Ethiopia in their 2017 U20 African Youth Championship.

“When it comes to the youth level, once you fall into the age category you are called. We have so many Ghanaian players, over 200 on the database.The youth level is a difficult and challenging stage.Our aim is to qualify first of all but we want to dominate play for which we are also very positive.”I think the boys know as a youth player, for you to have more games, is to win more matches and enter more competitions.These are organized competitions including African Youth Championship and World Youth Cup."

WHAT NEXT IF WE QUALIFY?

Ghana will face either Senegal or Tunisia in the final round of qualifying for a place in the African Yoith Championship in Zambia in 2017. The tournament is playe amongst 8 nations with the top 4 progressing the Youth World Cup.

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