Ghana’s national female U-17 football team, the Black Maidens qualified to the next stage of the FIFA U-17 World Cup qualifiers with a vintage display to run 8-0 winners against Liberia at the Accra Sports Stadium on Saturday.
They sailed through via a 10-0 aggregate score after beating the Liberians 2-0 in the first leg qualifier in Monrovia.
But for poor decision making by the Maidens, they could have recorded more than the six goals scored in the first half with three coming under the first five minutes.
Looking perplexed after striker Ophelia Osei Amponsah fired home the opener under two minutes, they failed to regain their composure and chased shadows as the Ghanaians bombarded their area.
The Maidens course was helped greatly by the quality of goalkeeper Jackie Touah who was beaten easily on three occasions by Amponsah twice to make a hat-trick with the fourth from Salamatu Abdulai in the fourth minute.
Defensive midfielder, Elizabeth Oppong raised the tally to five with a long drive from the middle of the Liberian half before the Maidens added another to make it six.
Between the first four and last two goals of the first half, the Maidens could have scored four more goals as they wasted two ‘one-on-one’ situations before Abdulai Salamatu and Atuah Thelma Baffour also lacked ideas when the two went near with a confused goalkeeper to beat but failed to pass to each other.
The Liberians appeared very organised in the second and plucked the holes in their defensive set up; making the Maidens struggle to penetrate.
Assata Dulleh, a first half substitute for goalkeeper Touah also got her movement right and stopped a few goal bound strikes but was beaten finally in the 64th minute by another substitute, Alice Sarpong from the spot after she was brought down in the goal area.
Tracy Twum scored the final goal in the 66th minute to nail the coffin of the Liberians ad would likely face the Flamingos of Nigeria in the next round.
BY ANDREW NORTEY
