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Black Meteors will qualify for 2020 Olympics -Skipper Yaw Yeboah

Black Meteors Captain, Yaw Yeboah has assured that the team will work hard to secure qualification to the football tournament of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

He gave the assurance on Tuesday when the team visited Ghana’s Ambassador to Egypt, Winfred Nii Okai Hammond.

The national U-23 team is preparing to participate in the Africa U-23 Africa championship in Egypt from where the three top nations would get the tickets to represent Africa in the football tournament of the multi-sport festival to be staged in Tokyo, Japan.

The Black Meteors arrived in Egypt on Monday to commence preparation for the start of the competition tomorrow.

Yeboah told the Ghanaian officials the team was determined to secure qualification to stage a return to the Games which has eluded Ghana for a long time.

“We know the expectations of Ghanaians. We have not been able to qualify for the championship for a long time but we believe this is the time for us to return. It is a very difficult competition from start to finish. We were ruled out of the qualifiers when we drew with Algeria in the last qualifier in Accra but we surprised everybody when we went there to beat them in the second leg.”

According to him “We seeing you here is a motivation to us. We are also going to assure you that we will work hard in achieving our target. We like the confidence you have shown in us and we assure you that we will do our best to qualify”

Mr Hammond encouraged the players to be strong and give their very best if they hope to qualify for the event.

He assured the team of the total support of Ghanaians and urged them to look beyond qualification and win the championship.

Meanwhile, Coach of the Meteors, Ibrahim Tanko had the full complement of his team yesterday as Holland based striker, Abass Issah joined the team. 

Issah was a last minute replacement for Nashville SC striker, Ropapa Mensah, who withdrew from the team for the championship.

Tanko expressed delight at the arrival of Issah who he hoped would make a huge impact in the competition.

“He (Ropapa) would have joined earlier but a late injury made it impossible for him. I don’t think we will miss him so much because we have equally good players who are all determined to make a mark for themselves.”

Issah had his first training session with the team yesterday after arriving late Tuesday and is poised to make a mark.

The Black Meteors which is made up of 12 foreign based professionals and nine locally based are paired in Group A alongside hosts Egypt, Cameroon and Mali, a group described as a group of death.

They will lock horns with Cameroon tomorrow.

BY TIMES SPORTS REPORTER

 

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