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These five reasons led to Black Starlets failure to qualify for Tanzania 2019
The Black Starlets coach has enumerated five factors that led to his team failure to qualify for the 2019 Africa U-17 World Cup.
These four reasons led to Black Starlets failure to qualify for Tanzania 2019
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The Black Starlets of Ghana couldn’t make it to the 2019 Africa U-17 Nations Cup to be held in Tanzania next year after a 1-3 defeat on penalties against Nigeria, following a 1-1 draw in the 90 minutes of regulation.
Karim Zito whose charges missed out on the tournament believes five factors caused their downfall.
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“The Anas expose’- The situation created in the country after the expose’ put all football activities on hold. It wasn’t a good atmosphere for football to thrive well," he told Ghana Crusader Online Radio.
‘Preparation was very poor- If I make my programme for the tournament public, you would realise I couldn’t embark on most of them. The team didn’t have the best of test before the tournament, despite lining-up series of games. We planned moving from one region to the other starting from Ashanti region, then to Western region, then Central and Eastern.
“I quite remember when we played at the Tema Sports Stadium, the skipper of the team told me he has never played before that crowd of people.
“We also trained on an astroturf with the expectation that the tournament would be staged on an artificial turf, but that wasn’t the situation, because the game took place on a natural grass.
“We were also poor in front of goal- My players created the best of opportunities, but they fluffed them.
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“The MRI test also had a toll on the team. In my first justify to select players, we had 104 players and after the first MRI test the squad was trimmed down to 38.
“I decided to do a final MRI test a week to the tournament and seven were disqualified and unfortunately three of the starters were part of them, including our leading striker. This also explains why we couldn’t score a lot of goals.”
READ MORE: Black Starlets vs Nigeria in numbers
The Golden Eaglets of Nigeria have joined the seven other African countries for the 2017 Africa U-17 Nations Cup.
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