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17.12.2002 Football News

Starlets off to Kenya

17.12.2002 LISTEN
By GNA

The national U-17 soccer team, Black Starlets, begin their journey to Swaziland this weekend with a preliminary round battle against Kenya in Nairobi on saturday.

The match is the first leg of the penultimate eliminator and the Starlets handlers believe they have prepared enough to scale over this hurdle.According to the team's head coach, Sellas Tetteh, the drills the players have undergone so far put them on a good footing to record a respectable result in Saturday's away duel.

“We have worked really hard over the past weeks and hope to return from Kenya with victory” coach Tetteh assured the nation.For now, the head coach and his assistant, Bashiru Hayford, have absolute confidence in each of the 26 players in camp now.

But for the purposes of this weekend's asignment, only 18 players were needed and that final selection was expected to be made prior to their scheduled departure yesterday.

This time, the Starlets handlers are treading cautiously in order to avoid the nightmare which befell their predecessors in the previous qualifiers which saw the Starlets being shown the exit by Gambia.

Forturnatetly, Coach Sellas Tetteh who was then assistant coach was a witness to that shocker and can be trusted to stem the tide this time.Though the Ghanaians still lack information about their opponents, they have no cause to worry especially using their recent 4-1 thrashing of Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou as an appropriate measuring rod to determine their battle-readiness.

Aside of that, the Starlets have seven other victories and to a draw to boast of out of their various local friendlies with only one defeat (2-1) to Liberty Professionals last Saturday.

The current Startlets team which is bereft of any premier league player will clash with the winner of the Tanzania-Ethoiopia duel in the final eliminator to the Africa U-17 Championship in Swaziland, in case they ward off the Kenya Challenge. Meanwhile, the team was scheduled to leave for Kenya last night

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