FIFA U-17 World Cup: African brothers battle for s/final ticket

Mali vs Ghana U-17 team

UNKNOWN to many, Mali defeated Ghana 2-1 last month in Abu Dhabi, in a friendly, as both sides clash again today in the quarter-final of the ongoing 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

The African brothers clash at 5:00pm at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium, Guwahati, India, while England battle with USA in another quarter-final game at 8:00pm at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, India.

Interestingly, the African teams would reignite the fireworks they displayed on September 20 in UAE as they battle for a semi-final ticket today.

Ghana’s Black Starlets won the World cup on two occasions, 1991 and 1995 with two final defeats, 1993 and 1997 while the ‘Les Aiglonnets’ Junior Eagles of Mali’s best performance was the silver in the 2015 final after losing to Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets 0-2.

Today’s clash provides coach Paa Kwasi Fabin another opportunity to avenge the loss to Mali and brighten his hope of becoming the third coach to lift the U-17 World Cup trophy for Ghana.

To captain Eric Ayiah, the Black Starlets are determined to conquer the world again after over two decades of failed attempts and add a chapter to the history of Ghanaian football.

“I haven’t seen any of the matches from when Ghana won the title in 1991 and 1995, but I have read about them. We want to regain the trophy and raise our country’s flag high.

“All the players dream of playing in Europe. We need to show our potential and work as a team, so that we can each get the rewards we deserve,” Ayiah told FIFA.com

The scorer of two goals so far at India 2017 stated that, “We’ve got more than one objective here. We’ve achieved the first and now we’re going after the rest. We need to make it to the final and try and win the title.”

Unarguably, the Ghanaians would have to be extra-prepared to tackle free scoring Lassana N’Diaye who would lead the Malians’ attack.

N’Diaye is one of the leading scorers at India 2017 with five goals and having scored during the friendly in UAE, he remains Ghana’s albatross in today’s clash as well as Hadji Drame who also scored during last month’s friendly and boast two goals so far in the cadet World Cup.