Ghana’s male Olympic football team, the Black Meteors, will tomorrow aim to finish off the Mambinhas of Mozambique in a second leg qualifier for the U-23 Africa Cup of Nations tournament scheduled for Morocco in June, 2023 at the Baba Yara- Stadium.
The Black Meteors were exempted from the first round of qualifiers and carry a 2-1 advantage against the Mambinhas from the second round first leg clash in Maputo into tomorrow’s game.
With the target to snatch one of the four African slots for the next Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, Black Meteors Head Coach Ibrahim Tanko is not leaving nothing to chance in achieving a feat that eluded him at the last edition of the tournament.
Even in the face of the first leg win in Maputo last week, Coach Tanko sees the opposition as a tough side that aims at causing an upset.
Speaking ahead of the game, he urged Ghanaians not to be flattered by the score line from the first leg, adding that his team will approach the game as if nothing happened in the first leg.
“Our target is to qualify and that is my main focus. The first leg verdict for me does not matter, it is the qualification that matters.”
The team returned to Ghana last Tuesday from Maputo and moved to the ‘Garden City’ of Kumasi on Thursday to put finishing touches to their preparations for the game.
“There are no injury concerns in the team; we are prepared to do the double over the Mozambicans. However, we would need the support of Ghanaians to finish what we started last week, Tanko stated ahead of the game.
For the Mambinhas, they believe that it was possible to turn the tie around.
Head Coach of the side, Chiquinho Conde, says the quality of the Ghana team notwithstanding, it was possible to turn the tie in his side’s favour.
Having watched the Ghanaians in the first leg, Conde hopes to expose some weaknesses in his opposition’s game with the return to full fitness of top marksman Zidane Sidat who is likely to start and unlock the defence of the Ghanaians.
“I have told my players that they must believe that it is possible to beat Ghana and, consequently, pass the tie. They should put their mind to it to make the feat a reality,” he told the Mozambican media ahead of departure to Ghana on Thursday.
The aggregate winner will come up against either DR Congo or Algeria in the third and final round of qualifiers scheduled for March 2023.
BY RAYMOND ACKUMEY
