Ghana Black Meteors (U-23) begin their African U-23 Nations Cup against Cameroon tomorrow in Egypt
Ghana’s national U-23 team Black Meteors begin their U-23 AFCON in Egypt tomorrow Friday against Cameroon at Cairo International Stadium.
Meteors booked a place into this year’s championship after seeing off countries like Togo, Gabon and Algeria in the qualifying stages, scoring a total of 11 goals and conceding just 3 in all 6 games.
Ghana’s last hurdle before coming into tomorrow’s clash against Rigobert Song’s men was a hard one as Ibrahim Tanko’s side drew 1-1 at home to Algeria.
In the first leg, Adem Zorgane struck in the first half to put Algeria ahead before Dauda Mohammed equalized for Ghana on the 65th minute. Meteors skipper Yaw Yeboah scored the 1-0 match winner in Setif to send Ghana through to Egypt on 2-1 aggregate.
On the side of Cameroon, though they had difficult times during the qualifying round but they managed to thrash out Chad and Tunisia, they never won any of their away games.
Debutantes Ghana and Cameroon meet in group A later tomorrow after hosts Egypt have engaged Mali in the opener of the group in Cairo.
As Meteors prepare to face Cameroon tomorrow, Ibrahim Tanko and his men are feeling the pressure, and Tanko has highlighted his side intention of making history in the forth coming tournament.
“There is pressure in our everyday activities, the boys are eager to make their names in this tournament and for the coming games and I also want to qualify for the games, so there is pressure everywhere”.
“But that notwithstanding, our soul aim of qualifying still remains high and we are going to make sure that Ghana gets one of the available slots.”
The first three nations will represent Africa in Tokyo 2020 Olympic games, and Ghana is hopeful of making it to Tokyo when they last represented Africa in 2004 Olympics, haven placed third in their group with the same point with Italy (4 points) but two points below leaders Paraguay.
The U-23 AFCON tournament in runs from 8-22 Nov. In group B, Nigeria and Ivory Coast will open the group on Saturday 9th Nov before South Africa host Zambia later on the day at El Salam Stadium.
